


In which Rose Lalonde has a terrible idea

by futureshieldmaiden



Category: Homestuck
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - College/University, Demonstuck, Multi, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Past Child Abuse, Trans Dave Strider, Trans Jade Harley, it doesn't focus on any of the school stuff so you can basically ignore that, sorry i can't be bothered to tag everyone individually
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-17
Updated: 2018-05-19
Packaged: 2018-08-23 00:04:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 33
Words: 58,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8306194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/futureshieldmaiden/pseuds/futureshieldmaiden
Summary: For the last two years, Dave and Rose have been living together, and it has been working out quite well. That is, until Dave killed her cat and she brought it back to life using the powers of a demon. And then she has a terrible idea and the rest of her friends have to deal with the consequences.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first fic I have written and published, so bear with me. If you want to ask me anything, you can find me on tumblr by the same username, comments are appreciated, I hope you enjoy this!

Rose Lalonde’s house featured some interesting views on what counts as home décor. It looked as though a new age alternative lifestyle shop and vintage clothing store had been shredded and pieced together in a blender, then the contents of that blender had been chucked over the fantasy section of a bookshop. This resulted in rich purple armchairs with mismatched cushions and throw pillows strewn across them placed next to a lacquered black table with tentacles instead of legs. Said table held a collection of books about wizards and eldritch gods, as well as romance novels that are objectively terrible.

The only room in the house spared from this was Dave Strider’s room. When he moved in he made it a point to remove anything that featured long suckered appendages and/or doilies. He swore that the damned lacy bastards were multiplying, he kept finding them when he went into the living room. So far none had found their way back into his room, but he wouldn’t put it past them. He also banished almost everything knitted. Only almost, because Rose made some very warm scarves and Dave wasn’t going to deprive himself from that small comfort. There were also a couple of hats and blankets somewhere under the piles of wires and university text books, but he drew the line at sweaters, because those things Rose called sweaters only fit that description by the loosest of definitions. They were also ugly as hell. She had tried to gift him one for Christmas and it had somehow found its way to the back of his closet never to see the light of day.

Dave was sitting in one of the aforementioned armchairs, enjoying the feel of velvet underneath him and having a rather nice day. He had gotten some apple juice and put it into a plastic Barbie mug when Rose had insisted that he didn’t drink from the carton. He was wondering why exactly he needed a coaster for it, and where Rose had even gotten these coasters, because he was pretty sure that the convenience store didn’t sell coasters with these designs when his sister walked into the room. Rose was holding a book that Dave recognised as one Jade had given her, and wearing a smile. This was a smile that Dave recognised as a bad sign. He eyed her cautiously over his mug as she sat in the chair across from him. She sat down as if she was pretending to be delicate, her knees pressed together, back straight. Elegant. Dave nearly snorted, but he knew that her sitting like that was also a bad sign. He sat up properly himself, making Rose raise an eyebrow.

“Brother dearest, you can lounge around if you choose. Why are you looking at me as though I’m some kind of wild animal?”

“Because you’ve got that face.”

“I always have this face Dave, it’s mine.”

“You’re so smart. You’ve got this look, the one that means you’re planning something.”

“Oh and me planning something is cause enough for you to act as though I’m about to steal your firstborn child?”

“All of your plans are fucking terrible Lalonde. The pile of reasons why I shouldn’t trust that look doesn’t stop growing, it just keeps accumulating mass until it’s so large that the government is going to take one look at it and say yep, sorry nothing to do, that thing is way bigger than Texas we’re going to have to nuke it. People have built houses and families on this pile of your shitty ideas, and they’re all going to die, so they’re running around screaming and getting in their final gropes of their partners’ asses because you just wouldn’t stop making fucking terrible decisions.”

Rose had crossed her arms, the book resting on her lap. “Are you done?”

“My point is that I have no reason to think that this idea you’re about to shove in my face isn’t going to result in something fucking terrible.”

“Not all of my ideas are that bad.”

“Yes, they are.”

“It was my idea for you to move in here.”

“Ok, so one idea. And that barely even counts because it wasn’t all your idea, it was a group effort, plus it’s not like you don’t live in a fuckoff big house anyway. You still have a track record of your ideas ending badly, like when you got that fucking cat and he never stopped being in the fucking way. He was bound to end up in the wrong place at the wrong time, and if it wasn’t going to be me dropping a book on him it would’ve been something else.”

“Speaking of Jaspers,” Rose began. Dave put his mug down and leant forward.

“I swear to all of your ancient tentacled hentai gods that if you get another fucking cat I will expire on the spot. It will be a fucking legendary death, people will tell stories of it, here lies Dave Strider, he died because his sister got another fucking cat.”

“I’m not getting another cat. Not exactly.”

Dave stared at her blankly for almost a full minute. She didn’t say anything, clearly waiting for him to ask for clarification. He didn’t want to play the game of ‘make Dave ask all of the questions to make Rose feel superior’, so he decided to wait her out. Then he heard something. His brain refused to process the noise properly, because it shouldn’t be possible. Then the noise came again, and he looked down at his feet and there was a fluffy asshole of a cat meowing at him. A cat that looked exactly like a cat that should be dead. The cat continued to make fucking pathetic noises at him until he apparently decided that Dave wasn’t worth the fucking effort and walked over to Rose, who let him jump up on to her lap. She petted him and looked like a Bond villain so Dave bit the metaphorical bullet and asked the question.

“What do you mean by not exactly? Because right now it sure as fuck looks like you got another cat that looks like a perfect clone of the last one. Is that a clone? Were you so desperate for furry companionship that you used Jaspers’ remains and your Japanese porn gods majiks to create a clone of him? Please tell me I’m wrong.”

Rose looked down at the cat in her lap rather than meet Dave’s gaze through his shades. Dave also looked at the cat. It really did look exactly the same as the other cat.

“You’re not entirely wrong.”

“What? No, Rose, I wanted to be wrong just this one time in my life, god dammit, why would you do this to me? What the hot mess of fresh fuck am I looking at here?”

“I brought Jaspers back to life.”

Dave blinked. Rose petted the cat. The cat looked like a smug reincarnated bastard.

“What?”

Rose looked at Dave’s face, and then looked away, apparently not liking what she saw there. She grabbed the book instead. She held it up so he could see it clearly and pointed at it, as if it wasn’t already the focus of his attention. Fair enough, it was competing with an apparently-not-dead cat.

“This book Jade found for me. The one she recovered from a cave on one of her digs, if you recall it?”

“Yes, I recall it. Hard not to recall it when the only fucking thing you have been doing other than studying is translating that fucking book."

“Yes, well, good. As you may know, it centres around rituals of the demonic variety, though not the ancient gods. They aren’t that old. The creatures spoken of in this book, that is. No, it speaks mostly of a pantheon of twelve ancient demons of varying degrees of power and how one might use their powers. I followed one of the rituals described to utilise the power of one of the demons to revive the dead. This was mostly to test whether the rituals would even work. I honestly wasn’t expecting such overwhelming success.”

Apparently Dave staring at Rose was the recurring theme of this morning. He just can’t help it if she keeps spewing such unbelievable bullshit. He’s glad his shades stop her from seeing it.

“So you’re telling me that you invoked the powers of a tentacle monster to bring your fucking cat back from the dead?”

“You seem rather obsessed with tentacles this morning. I already told you it wasn’t those gods. But in essence, yes you are correct.”

The zombie cat licked his paws.

“Are you sure it’s even the same cat? And he doesn’t have some creepy undead powers? I don’t want to wake up one morning with that thing having burnt the fucking house down. Have you checked that it doesn’t have a second set of eyes or something?”

Rose glared at him. “Yes, I checked, he’s perfectly normal.”

Dave watched the cat. The cat ignored him. This somewhat convinced Dave that it was the same cat, because he never gave a shit about Dave in the first place. Dave tried to put together the pieces that Rose had so lovingly given him of whatever the fuck she was actually getting at.

“Ok, so you have your cat back. Great. What were you talking about when you said you wanted to test whether the rituals work? Because this all sounds like it’s building up to some kind of horrible bullshit plan, if I’m perfectly fucking honest.”

“The book also detailed some other rituals. These rituals also included ones which might summon members of the pantheon.”

“You want to summon a demon?”

“Yes Dave, to put it simply, I want to summon a demon.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all of the positive feedback so far, I hope you enjoy this! Again, comments are appreciated, and if you want to come talk to me on tumblr please go ahead!

“No. Just no. There isn’t enough negation in the world for how much I disagree with this idea. My lack of consent to this idea has hit absolute zero then continued the fuck on past it, giving it a mocking look over its shoulder like a motherfucker who just overtook you on Mariokart and then it’s going to go on and win the race, and then take a victory lap. This is your worst idea yet. It is such a bad idea that all of the other awful ideas you have had that have accumulated into that damn pile have taken one look at it and turned up their collective noses because it reeks so badly even to them. It has to make its own terrible idea island because it is such a fucking shitty idea. Hell. Fucking No.”

Dave was normally ok with Rose’s ancient god worship. He liked to think of himself as a fairly open minded and accepting person, and Rose’s obsession with the Eldritch and Lovecraftian was just a part of what made Rose Rose, plus sometimes she bought him nice gifts for ancient religious holidays. But actually summoning a demon was a little out of his comfort zone. It was so far out of his comfort zone that the two weren’t even on speaking terms anymore and had to have a messenger shuttle information between the two of them like two children having an argument, and that messenger was always exhausted because of how far apart they were. 

Rose was thumbing through the book, gazing at the pages fairly blankly.

“I wasn’t exactly asking for your permission. I think that this is an experiment that I simply must conduct for the greater good, and I thought it would be better if I had your assistance.”

Dave shifted in his seat. “So what you’re saying is that you’re going to do it anyway.”

“I wouldn’t phrase it like that. And I really would prefer to do it with your help, it would be much easier and infinitely safer. It isn’t as if you have never helped me with rituals  
before.”

“That was for shit like helping John get over the flu and wishing Jade luck on her travels, not unleashing monsters with unspeakable powers onto this earthly plane where they can beat our plush asses into the ground and possess us. These are two totally different things.”

“I have it all worked out, it won’t be that dangerous.” She made a wide hand gesture and Jaspers jumped off of her lap and stalked out of the room. “They will be bound to an object which should make them corporeal enough to not immediately attempt to take residence in our bodies, and if there is a protective circle which they will stay confined in then all should be fine. I have already learnt the banishing spell in case anything goes wrong. I just want you to help me.”

Dave rubbed at the point on his nose where his shades rested, taking care not to lift them. He sighed.

“I just don’t want to turn around one day and see that the last living member of my family has now become one with some eldritch horror and wants to slowly turn me into a puddle of oil or whatever they actually do.”

Rose gave Dave the most sympathetic look he’d ever seen, and it almost made him mad because they both knew he’d been beaten.

“If you help me, you can keep an eye on me and make sure that doesn’t happen.”

Dave sighed again and slumped forwards in his chair. “Fine.”

Rose got up and rested a hand on his shoulder. Her face was not one of someone who had just gotten what they wanted.

“I was going to ask John and Jade if they wanted to help too.”

“What? Why?”

Rose shrugged, trying to look nonchalant but failing as miserably as a trashcan with a ribbon tied around it would fail at a best dog contest.

“Jade is the one who got me the book, so I presumed that she would have some interest in what happens with it, and she is always fascinated by developments in science. As for John, well to be quite honest he is the last in the group and as he is also our best friend it would be unfair to leave him out. I’m sure he’d find it a stimulating experience.”

Dave refused to look up at her. “So are you going to call them?” 

“I was hoping that I’d get your permission first.”

“What the fuck do you need my permission for? They’re my friends not my goddamn children, go ahead.”

Rose removed her hand slowly and left the room, and Dave could hear her walking to the phone. He picked up his apple juice and drank some of it sadly. He had been having such a good morning. Jaspers had walked back into the room and leapt up onto Rose’s vacated chai, sucking up all of the warmth like some kind of leech. He’d always thought that cats were solar powered, and everything that lazy prick did supported his theories. He could hear Rose talking to Jade on the phone, and she seemed to be taking it much better than he had. He finished his drink and turned the cup around in his hands, playing with it until Rose came back into the room.

He looked up. “Did they agree to help?”

Jaspers made a surprised noise as Rose picked him up and settled him on her lap when she sat down. “They did. None of us have classes this Wednesday, would that time be ok with you as well?”

Sometimes Dave wondered why Rose even bothered to ask. She knew his timetable and had already agreed on a time with John and Jade so he kind of had to be ok with the day. He nodded anyway. 

“Yeah, that sounds fine. Gotta double check it won’t clash with me making up some mad sick jams, but I think we’re good.”

“Glad to hear it. I’m going to go and double check my translations, so I’ll be in my room if you need me.”

Rose then absconded the fuck away, in what would look like an awkward retreat if done by anyone else, but with Rose it looked like an awkward retreat hiding behind a huge sign that said ‘I know what I’m doing’. Still pretty damn uncomfortable though. She didn’t bother to move Jaspers before she stood up so he just fell right out of her lap like an overripe apple falling from a tree. Dave took his cup out to the kitchen. He still wanted to know where Rose had gotten those coasters, but he had far more pressing concerns. He thought that she had probably made them herself. 

When he returned to the living room, he noticed that in her haste to get the fuck out of there, Rose had left the book behind. That made her excuse for leaving look flimsier than a paper ghost, but Dave let it slide, and picked the book up. If he was going to be opening the gates to some hell dimension, he at least wanted to know what kind of abominations he’d be inviting into his house. Rose’s house technically, but he’s been living there for two years now, so he felt safe saying that. He flipped through the pages and as he had expected he didn’t understand anything. The pages themselves were yellowed and delicate, they’d fall apart if you pulled too hard on them or held them up in a gentle breeze, so Dave turned them slowly. The writing itself wasn’t in any language Dave recognised, but there were a few bright orange post-it notes here and there with Rose’s writing on them, presumably notes for translation, but Dave just could not read her fancy as fuck handwriting so he had no idea. There were also diagrams that showed items required for summoning the demons, and pictures of the demons themselves. They were very clearly hand drawn and were done in black ink like the rest of the book.

The demons did not look human at all, but most of them looked almost like animals. One of them looked like a cat, but it had two mouths and horns. In fact, they all had horns, none of them looked the same, but they did all have them. They were all grey as well, but that seemed to be the only thing they had in common. One of them looked like a sheep, another a huge spider, another a crab. The one that looked like a crab had the tiniest horns of all of them, and Dave thought they were pretty pathetic. Others were harder to identify. One of them looked like a cross between a goat and a fish, and the last one just looked like a pile of tentacles. So they were summoning hentai monsters. Or at least they might be. Dave decided to live in hope that they wouldn’t be summoning that one. 

There were hundreds more pages after the last of the drawings, and all of it was incomprehensible, so Dave got bored of looking through it after a while and flipped back to the drawings. He could probably draw these guys. One of them looked like a dragon, and that would be fucking rad to draw. He took the book and went to his room, setting up his laptop and tablet so he could sketch it out. Before he could finish turning them on, or even deciding if he wanted to try and draw them properly or make a shitty comic out of them, Rose knocked on his door.

“Sup?”

Rose didn’t enter Dave’s room, but her eyes jumped straight to the book on his desk.

“I was going to ask if you’d noticed where the grimoire had disappeared to, but I can see that you have taken a liking to it. May I ask what exactly you’re doing with it?”

Dave shrugged and opened one of his desk drawers to look for his tablet pen. “I was going to draw this sick ass dragon, but then you strolled in, so I’m gonna presume that you want it back?”

Rose crossed her arms and leant against the door jam. “Not necessarily. I just wanted to double check one thing, then you can hold on to it for a bit.” 

Shutting the drawer that he was searching through and opening another one, Dave said “I thought you needed it for translation?”

Rose walked into the room and grabbed the pen from where it was jutting out of a stack of textbooks and passed it to him. He shut the drawer.

“I have already scanned most of the pages, I just wanted to double check one of the titles. I think there was something on the page when I scanned it because it was very blurred.”

Dave handed the book over to her and opened up the drawing programme on his laptop. Rose made a noise of displeasure. 

“What’s the problem?”

She turned the book around so that he could see it. It was opened to the page with the crab demon on it, and her finger was pointing at some writing near the top.

“Most of the demons have a list of titles after their names, and this one should as well, but it seems to be distorted in some way.”

Dave frowned at the writing, and could see that it did look slightly less legible than the other scribbles around it. 

“Do you need to know the titles?”

“Not for summoning, but for banishing them later I do.”

“Maybe we can find out when we do summon it. Or we could summon a different one. We’re only summoning the one, right?”

“Yes, I just want to see if it’s possible. But I’d rather summon this one because it seems much weaker than the others in the grimoire. The text surrounding it implies that it has the weakest powers of them all. Hopefully we shouldn’t need the titles.”

“Why the fuck do they have titles in the first place?”

Rose took the book back from him and flipped a few pages forwards. “I’m not completely sure, I think it is just a formality. They have a short, two-word phrase first, which is probably their name, then a three-word phrase with the x of y structure, then a much longer title which appears to just be a description and more detailed analysis of the former. Look here,”

Again, Rose let Dave look at the book and gestured to writing he couldn’t understand. This time it was on the page of the giant spider. 

“It says ‘Vriska Serket, Thief of Light, The One Who Has All The Luck.’ They seem to use the words luck and light interchangeably, so it could actually say ‘thief of luck’, but I believe this is the correct translation.”

Dave nodded along. Rose continued.

“I’m sure we’ll find out though. And if not, I doubt we’ll need it. Thank you for letting me look at the book, even though it is mine. I’ll leave you to your drawing.”

Dave took the book back from her and went back to the crab demon without a title. Rose left, and he decided that the crab would look great in a comic, and began drawing.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Halloween peeps! Enjoy a change in POV

Rose Lalonde’s room was a mess. Or, to be precise, more of a mess than usual. It was very rarely tidy, often with casually discarded clothes and half-finished knitting projects serving as trip hazards, but for the most part it was relatively organised, with her course books and work on her desk and her novels on their appropriate shelves. However, over the last few days she had developed an unfortunate habit of leaving things where they were when she was finished with them, or quickly moving them to make room for something else. This meant that when she returned to her room after talking to Dave, she had to avoid: a couple (2) of half empty cups of tea, one (1) stack of articles that were required reading for her psychology course, three (3) separate print outs of the scanned pages of the grimoire, and several (?) candles. The candles weren’t lit, thankfully, she only had them out to try and decide which would be best for the ritual. All she had been thinking about was the ritual. She had tried to write an assignment about Freud and why his theories are entirely incorrect, but had gotten distracted halfway and begun sketching out circle arrangements (She had gotten an extension).

Rose went to sit down on her chair, and sighed when she realised that she’d piled a stack of dictionaries on it. She thought she needed to return the majority of them to the library, some of them were only a three-day loan. They might be overdue; she wasn’t entirely sure. She didn’t care particularly much as she could just pay whatever fee they wanted to throw at her. She sat on the floor, because moving the dictionaries would require finding somewhere to put them. 

Spread out in front of her was the final translation of the ritual she intended to do. Summoning a demon that had no name. Rose let out a sigh and ran a hand through her hair. It snagged and she frowned at it. She needed to brush it. And re-dye it. And put some coconut oil in it, because all of the straightening and bleaching was wearing it out. She might ask Dave if she could borrow his. Or not, seeing as she was already asking him to help her summon a demon. 

She knew he didn’t want to. She knew why he didn’t want to, anyone could see why. It didn’t exactly seem like the safest of excursions and anything could go wrong, but she had it under control. She had done more research for this than she had for her whole last two years of college combined, and learnt a whole new language. She’d spoken to (mostly unhelpful) strangers on the internet and searched several (mostly dodgy) websites and read hundreds of (mostly ancient) books. She’d bought crystals and charged them so that they wouldn’t have any residual energy that might interfere. She’d specifically chosen items to bind the demons to that matched their traditional forms. Rose Lalonde had this 100% locked down and nothing was going to go wrong. She was going to summon a demon and then banish it, then find a way to prove to the world that they existed and make huge scientific progress. Though mostly, she just wanted to see if they were real.

She’d spent her whole life fascinated by magic. Her mother read her bed time stories about warlocks and magicians and she’d fallen in love with the idea of witchcraft. She’d done an abundance of research on the occult and fallen into wicca, and loved it, but wanted more. She found luciferianism but none of it was quite what she was looking for. She’d been struggling for so long to find something that proved that the gods she heard in her dreams were real, the ones that whispered to her in her sleep, but everything she found, everyone she encountered seemed to only be thinking in the abstract. Was it so bad if she wanted an actual solid concrete demon? She didn’t think so. 

She kept up the other practices, because they led her to good people, and they taught her about working with energy and gave her a framework and were honestly interesting. But she kept searching. And then Jade found her that book. 

She pulled one of the scanned pages towards her, and read through her notes down the side. She had to admit that the book rather consumed her. She had fleetingly considered, at the beginning, that this may be a ruse, but that was until she had revived Jaspers. When she had held him in her arms again, and felt his heartbeat under her, and his claws digging into her arm, she had also felt a drop of hope, sudden and startling, then as she translated the book further and devoured any resources and leads for more information she came across, it had turned from a single drop to a shower to a downpour to a flood which engulfed her. It had mostly drained out now, leaving her with an unsettling amount of restlessness and nerves. She hated this part, if she was quite honest. The waiting. She had completed everything, had the incantation memorised, the circle drawn, crystals chosen, she’d even picked out the right candles. She just had to wait three days. She would have preferred to do it on the new moon, but she had classes then so that just wasn’t going to work. She definitely wasn’t going to wait until the next one. 

She tried to check through the translation again, but she had read it through more times than she could count now, and if she had to read it again before the time it was necessary, she might just rip her hair out. Shoving it away, she stood up. She moved the stack from her chair, and sat down. The one on top of the pile definitely needed to be returned. It was a three-day rental and she’d borrowed it…it must have been five days ago. Had she really locked herself away that long? She looked around her room, at the scattered pens, the bin that was overflowing with crumpled up paper, the mess of documents and teacups making up a large portion of her floor’s real estate. She was a disaster. 

Oh well, it wasn’t like she had anything better to do. She stood up and began tidying her room. She picked up all of the cups she could see and moved them so that they were just in front of the door. Most of them still had some liquid in. She contemplated drinking it, but decided against it. She then put everything pertaining to summoning in one pile, and shoved that pile into an empty drawer of her desk. She really should have somewhere else to put things related to it, but she’d only really thrown that kind of energy into it in the last five days. It had just been her and Jaspers, and occasionally Dave when she left her room. She had e-mailed her lecturers, claiming that she was ill and should be back soon. She would have told Dave what she was doing, but she wasn’t sure he’d noticed. With no offence to him intended, he was often off in his own world. The same could be said for her. Neither of them really noticed when the other had problems. That had been an issue a while ago. But they’d gotten through it. And it wasn’t like this was a problem. It was a project, the realisation of Rose’s life’s ambition. She really needed somewhere to put this stuff. 

She cleaned up the rest of her room, as best as she could in such a short span of time, which mostly meant kicking all of her clothes into a pile, but it looked much better. She resolved to empty her bin when she returned to her room, then picked up as many of the cups as she could carry and went to the kitchen. Amongst all of the other cups was one of Dave’s mugs. She smiled slightly at the sight of it. Her brother was ridiculous. She still wasn’t entirely sure why he had it. It was the Barbie mug he had been drinking out of earlier. Plastic and likely a few years old, it had a bright pink logo on it with a picture of the doll smiling up at Rose. There were so many layers of reasons why he might have it, layers of irony he might say. Rose thinks it might just be because he likes the feel of the plastic. He’d complained about how porcelain and china feel like he was biting a rock, though he’d used much more colourful language. She washed up all of the mugs, and realised that Dave had changed the washing up liquid again, because she was pretty sure that they hadn’t been using lemon. Either that or they’d used it up and she hadn’t noticed. She had been fairly disconnected these past few days. She really needed to not do that, but she was just so close to what she wanted that it hardly mattered. 

Once she’d put everything away she returned to her room, passing Dave’s on the way. He had left his door open and she could see that he had his headphones on and was drawing intently, looking up at the grimoire frequently. She didn’t linger, and carried on past, but was happy to see that even if he wasn’t necessarily happy with the arrangement, he wasn’t annoyed. At least, she didn’t think he was annoyed. She hoped that she’d be able to tell. She stood in her doorway, then turned and went up to the observatory.

It was getting late, and she wanted to double check the circle. Again. So, realistically it was triple checking, but she wanted to make sure it hadn’t smudged since she’d last looked at it. She took the stairs two at a time, not because she was in any kind of rush, but because she liked to, and no one was looking. When she unlocked the door, she saw that the circle was, in fact, exactly how she’d left it, as she’d expected. 

To call it a circle wasn’t accurate, as it was comprised of six circles. Drawn in chalk, the design on the floor was four circles of equal size equidistant from each other at each of the cardinal direction, with a circle in between and a larger one encompassing all of them. When they were ready to use it, they would have candles and crystals at each point and the offering in the centre. It looked perfect. Rose just hoped it would work. She walked its circumference once, just to reassure herself that Jaspers hadn’t walked through it at any point and made some tiny flaw she couldn’t see from a distance. He had not. 

She went back to her room and retrieved her laptop from where she had buried it under marked term papers, and read through an e-book for a topic that would soon be coming up in class. She read until her eyes grew heavy and she felt like she might go to sleep, then she turned off the laptop and changed into a nightdress. It was only after she had gotten under the covers and closed her eyes that she realised that she’d forgotten to empty the bin. She groaned. It could wait until the morning.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise that there will be demons soon. I hope you enjoy this, comments are appreciated!

The three days passed simultaneously very quickly and slower than a snail making its way down a garden path. Rose had spent those days at a loss with herself, trying to find something to do with the surplus of time. She’d gone to her classes, caught up with her work, tidied her room and allowed Dave to coerce her into a private dance party of just the two of them in his room, so while the time had felt like it was being stretched like taffy, it was very soon Wednesday. 

Rose found herself up in the observatory, rotating crystals by the slightest of degrees and shifting candles half an inch to the left or in any other given direction. She knew it wouldn’t make the blindest bit of difference whether they were perfectly in line or not, or if they caught the moonlight exactly how she wanted them to, but she only had ten minutes until John and Jade got here and she had nothing else to do. She gave up and sat down in her circle in the west. She’d designated each of them a cardinal direction, and she only hoped that they wouldn’t argue with her. There were other places they could sit which would probably work, but this was the best way. She pulled out her phone, and saw that she had exactly zero new texts. She read back through Jade’s message from earlier, saying that they were leaving the house soon and should be here shortly. Rose got up, checked the circle again, turned the light off and went back downstairs. 

Dave was in the living room, doing…

“Dave, what are you doing?”

He looked up from where he was sat, the grimoire (which Rose had never taken back from him) open in front of him, as well as an A2 piece of paper covered in small magazine clippings. She knew they were magazine clippings because he still had the magazines in front of him, as well as a pair of scissors and a tub of PVA glue. 

“I’m making a collage.”

Rose approached him. He had it open to the dragon, Terezi Pyrope if Rose’s memory served her correctly, and was making what could possibly be interpreted as a rendition of it, if you squinted and tilted your head slightly. Leaning like that hurt Rose’s neck so she looked at Dave instead. He had managed to get a piece of paper stuck to his cheek.

“Yes, I can see that. Why?”

Dave shrugged.

“I was bored and my laptop is installing updates.”

“I see. Well, I’m glad that you found something to do to occupy your time, however John and Jade should be here within the next ten minutes, so you should probably begin cleaning that up.”

“Nah, what you really want to do is sit your ass down and help me make this the best dragon that has ever been made from scraps of paper. We’re gonna make this so good that the Louvre are going to call us and ask us if they can hang it up next to the Mona fucking Lisa but we’re gonna be like hell no and keep this masterpiece to ourselves.” 

Rose sat down next to him. It won’t really take that long to clean up, and even if it did, it could wait until after the summoning. She began ripping up the nearest magazine, but Dave reached over and took it from her.

“No, no, you’re doing it wrong.”

“Oh, I’m terribly sorry, I didn’t realise that there was a correct way to eviscerate paper.”

“Is that really the word you want to use? And there definitely is, look, you were ripping it like this,”

Dave then ripped the paper in the same way that she had been, and held it up so that she could see it. 

“and there are white edges, which nobody wants. Can’t do anything with those. You’ve gotta do it like this,” He then ripped it differently, and again held the paper up for her inspection. It looked significantly different. He handed the magazine back to her, and she tried again. He nodded at the piece she ripped off and, satisfied, she dismantled the rest of the sheet. Dave was using a tiny brush to coat them with glue and stick them to the paper. She hoped that it wasn’t one he used for painting, because it was never going to be the same again. It didn’t matter that much. They could always buy a new one. He handed her the brush and showed her which areas needed more grey pieces of paper.

“I’ll take over ripping them up, because you are doing such a shit job that you will never receive employee of the month even if you were the only employee. They’d give it to the printer and it still jams every time you try to fucking print something.”

Rose elbowed him gently in the ribs and stuck a piece of paper in the area he had pointed at. 

“Is that ok?”

Dave tilted his head to look at it. “It looks shitty. Perfect. Keep going.”

They continued like that for a while, with Dave occasionally leaning over and intervening. At one point, he made sure she didn’t cover up a certain piece of paper because it had the word dick on. Shortly, he got to his feet and went to his room. He returned with another paint brush, and made her shift over so they could both sit where they could comfortably reach the collage. 

They were still sat on the floor when the doorbell rang. Rose quickly stood and took in the room. They had made a bit of a mess. There was glue on the carpet, and minute pieces of paper on almost every surface, even though they had barely moved from their spot on the floor. She supposed it was best that they didn’t have any glitter. 

Dave must have seen the look on her face, because he said “I’ll clean it up, you get the door, right?” 

She nodded quickly, smoothed out her dress and checked her reflection in the mirror for any stray pieces of magazine or strands of glue. Deeming her appearance acceptable, she entered the hallway as their friends rang the doorbell again, making ‘all-star’ by smash mouth sound through the house. She really shouldn’t have trusted Dave when he said he could set up a doorbell, but unfortunately she didn’t know how to change it. Rose opened the door.

She wouldn’t necessarily say that John and Jade were dressed for a demon summoning. John was wearing a t-shirt and jeans, the same as always, and Jade was wearing cargo shorts and a green tank-top that said ‘I ruff you’ with a cartoon of a smiling dog beneath it. She kept her sigh to herself. 

“Hi, Rose!”

“Oh wow, you look great, the dress is very…”

Rose had actually made an effort with her clothes this morning, and picked a dress she thought would be appropriate for the occasion. It was long and black, with a pink belt. She thought she looked mysterious and glamorous. She arched an eyebrow at John.

“Yes?”

John stuttered. Jade spoke over him as she stepped forward and embraced Rose. “It looks lovely, can we come in?” 

“Of course” Rose stepped aside and allowed them admission to the hallway. John paused to take his shoes off, whereas Jade continued on into the living room, where Dave was piling the magazines onto the coffee table. He was also not dressed for a demon summoning ritual, but Rose wasn’t really expecting him to be. She was just glad that he hadn’t put on something ridiculous for the occasion, and had instead worn skinny jeans and a t-shirt with pepe the frog on it. Which was still kind of ridiculous, but at least it wasn’t a crab onesie. It hadn’t arrived in the post yet.

Jade and Dave hugged, and Jade looked at the collage as he was trying to find somewhere to put it. 

“What is that meant to be?”

Dave held it out so she could see it properly. Rose felt somewhat ashamed that she had taken part in its creation because it honestly looked nothing like what it was attempting to bear a likeness to. Clearly her participation had made it worse. Dave looked disturbingly proud of it. Jade tilted her head, frowning.

“It’s a sick ass collab by yours truly and our gracious host, a portrait of one of the badass demons we could be summoning but aren’t.”

“Oh. I think I see it?”

Jade did not look like she could see it. John entered the room, and gave Dave what looked from the outside to be a very painful hug, then took a step back to admire the collage.

“That is the shittiest thing you have ever made.”

“I know, right? Rose helped. I’m going to frame it and hang it in the hallway.”

“No, you are not.”

“Aw Rose, you’re no fun. I say we should all sit and make collages and not summon a demon.”

Rose winced internally. She had hoped that Dave had become…not necessarily enthusiastic about the idea, but less outright against it. He had seemed to be having fun the past three days, so she’d hoped he’d come around. Apparently not. 

“We’ve already got everything set up, it would be a shame to waste it. Besides, it’s only one demon.”

Dave’s facial expression shifted minutely, but it was hard to tell. He folded up the picture and put it on the coffee table.

“Ok, had to try asking though. John, wanna help me clean this glue up?”

“Not really.”

“Well damn, guy’s gotta do it all by himself, waiting on you hand and foot. It’s like butler island up in here.”

“Don’t be silly Dave, I’ll help you.” Jade then reached over and picked up the small pot of glue and the pair of them quickly finished cleaning up the living room, taking the pot out to the kitchen so it could be cleaned out later. 

While they were out of the room, John looked at Rose.

“Does Dave not realise that he has something on his face?”

Rose smirked. “I see no reason to tell him.”

John grinned, then his expression faded. “He looks kinda pissed, does he not want to summon a demon or something?”

Rose tugged at her sleeve. “Dave believes that it is too dangerous. He worries that something might go wrong and end up with someone getting hurt.”

She could feel John staring at her. “Is that likely to happen?”

“No, I have planned for every eventuality.”

John apparently accepted this statement easily. “That’s ok then.”

Dave and Jade returned quickly. Jade then seemed to notice the piece of paper stuck to Dave’s face and plucked it off. Dave glared and Rose and John, who both glared quietly at Jade, who was oblivious.

“Alright then, let’s get this shitshow on the road, all aboard the summoning train, it has no brakes and we aren’t going to stop until we hit demon central.” 

Rose interrupted him before he could extend this metaphor even further. “Thank you, Dave. Let’s head to the observatory, shall we?” 

She led them through the house and up to the prepared area, opening the door as dramatically as possible. The task at hand allowed a slight bit of gravitas, she felt. The observatory looked suitable atmospheric, lit only by candles, the white chalk she’d used to draw the circle almost glowing. The others filed into the room behind her, and spread out, taking in the design on the floor. She had put effort into that circle, and was pleased to see that they were impressed. She’d had difficulty measuring it out, she’d had to make a compass. The circle didn’t technically need to be perfectly symmetrical, but it was better this way. She closed the door.

“Wow, Rose, you really went all out with this one.”

“Indeed I did. Only the best for our visitor from another plane of existence. Speaking of, are you ready to summon a demon?”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, I know that it is only Wednesday, and that I normally post on Mondays. But I also know that something which will affect the future of the world has happened today and some people are very scared. I hope that this chapter can serve as a distraction for anyone that needs one, or just as one good thing which has happened today. I hope everyone reading this from the USA has a good day, and that you all stay safe. Comments are appreciated, as always.

Dave wouldn’t say that Rose had banned him from the observatory over the last few day, but he was pretty sure that if he’d walked in there he would have been chased back out again, and maybe also have had a cat thrown at him, so he hadn’t been there to watch whatever majiks Rose had been doing. It also meant that he saw it for the first time at the same time as John and Jade did. It being the most insane circle he’d ever seen drawn. It was so precisely done that he knew Rose had redone it about a hundred times just to get it exactly how she wanted it. The whole room looked different, because Rose had had to move the telescope so that she had room on the floor, and he was pretty sure that there had been some bookshelves up here as well, but he couldn’t see them anywhere. The telescope was shoved up against one of the walls, and so the centre of focus was the circle, the light from the fuck ton of candles that Rose was burning making the room almost as bright as it would be in daylight. 

He ignored Rose’s mostly rhetorical question.

“Oh, wow, you’ve actually drawn a circle. Six circles in fact. We are up to our collective asses in circles. I never thought you’d actually use them.”

Rose shot Dave a look. It was a look that meant Rose thought Dave was being deliberately annoying. He wasn’t, he had just never seen her actually draw a circle before. 

“Well, technically, they aren’t completely necessary, the circle itself is a completely invisible manifestation of energy and intention. This is merely a visual aid, which is useful when working with larger groups or the uninitiated.”

She gestured to John and Jade who were on the other side of the circle. John looked fairly awkward, and Jade was walking along the outline of the circle. She didn’t look fazed, and Dave wasn’t surprised. She’d probably seen some weirder shit on her travels. In fact, she’d definitely sent him photos of stranger things she’d come across.

“Why are you using chalk? I thought it was mostly used for lighter rituals?”

Oh yeah, Jade was also interested in Wicca. Not as much as Rose, but definitely more than Dave.

“Chalk it is a completely neutral substance, and thus shall not interfere with the dark energies we will be working with.”

Jade seemed satisfied with that answer. It just gave Dave more questions. 

“Right. I was expecting a big star. What are those things called, pentagrams? And there’s no blood either. I thought those were like the hallmark things of demon summoning.   
Summoning 101, devil ain’t gonna give a shit unless you got that sweet, sweet, blood and a big ass star as a calling card. He’ll take one look and call us fucking amateurs. Unless you’re planning on doing a sacrifice? Is that while you called John and Jade over, to slaughter one of them to summon your ancient gods. Rose, you’re my sister and I love you, but I can’t have you slitting my best friend open.”

Rose and John rolled their eyes simultaneously. They were good at that. They could get gold in Olympic synchronised eye rolling. 

“Blood magic is far too strong for work with amateurs such as ourselves, Dave.”

Dave snorted. She definitely wasn’t referring to herself there, but if she wanted to pretend they didn’t know that to make herself feel better, he wasn’t going to stop her. No one knew more about demons than Rose Lalonde, she’s simply the most obsessive there is. She continued as if he hadn’t interrupted. 

“The ritual I have planned is much simpler. And the pentagram is the symbol of the human spirit, and is used in such rituals on TV and in films incorrectly, though there are some who practice with its uses for such ceremonies. Nonetheless, we will not be using it. A circle will suffice for our purposes. And there will be no blood sacrifice, though your offer is   
appreciated and taken note of, should the need arise.”

“Wow, I’m so glad. Now what the fuck are we actually doing, my legs are getting sore from all of this standing around.”

Rose walked over to one of the smaller circles and stood in it. She turned to John.

“John, I would like you to stand over in the east, please.”

He frowned at her. “Which one is east?”

“The one opposite me.”

John stood where he was told. Dave expected him to start asking questions in a couple of minutes, because that’s just what he did. Rose then told Jade to stand in the north, and Dave in the south. They both followed her instructions. 

“Why do we have to stand in these places exactly?” 

There we go, ten points to Dave. Rose bit her lip and looked as though she was trying not to be overly sarcastic. She had been trying to reign it in recently, because she realised that a lot of the time people couldn’t tell if she was being genuine or not, but she still had to resist sometimes. 

“It’s optimal for the success of the ritual.”

Which was Rose’s way of saying that they were doing it because she wanted them to and they couldn’t exactly say otherwise because right now she was in charge. John seemed to understand that too, because he frowned at her. He opened his mouth to speak, but Jade interrupted. 

“Are we starting the ritual any time soon, or standing and talking?”

Thank the hentai god that Jade was there to keep them on track. Rose sat down, and the others took that as their cue to copy her. She then closed her eyes and sat in silence. John looked at him and he shrugged, because he had no idea what Rose was doing.

“So, are you going to bestow upon us anymore instructions, or are you just going to make us figure it out from your micro-expressions?”

Rose opened her eyes to glare at Dave. She had her hands neatly folded in her lap, and looked so fucking poised that Dave thought she might be summoning a photographer not a demon. 

“I was just centring myself and trying to get a grasp of your energies.” There were so many options with that sentence, but Rose carried on before he could say anything. “The three of you don’t really need to do anything, I will be the one doing the actual summoning, you’re only here to serve as a counterbalance and to help me in case things go terribly wrong.”

Dave had no idea what being a counterbalance meant, but he was more focused on the other part, because Rose had assured him that nothing was going to go wrong, and then not bothered to tell him what to do if something did happen. 

“Ok, and what do we do then? You get possessed by some Lovecraftian horror and we’re meant to do what exactly?”

“I’ll tell you what to do should I need to, but if everything goes according to plan, then it would just be information you don’t need.”

“Oh, and so the demon would just let you talk if you ask politely enough. Like, oh I know you want to take me over and kill all of my lovely friends but would you be so kind as to give me a few minutes to explain to them exactly how to get rid of you thank you that would be so kind. Just tell us what to do Rose.”

Jade and John were looking between the two of them like they were a particularly interesting game of baseball. Or whatever the one where you hit a ball back and forth was. No, wait, what was the one where you hit a ball against a wall? Because that is what this conversation felt like. 

Rose rubbed at her face with her hand. As if him caring about her safety was exhausting. 

“If anything happens you just banish the demon. We should be able to ask it to go away and have it leave, all reports have said so, but if that doesn’t work then to banish it we need its full title, then to say ‘I banish you, then the full title would go here, from this dimension, return to your home and do not touch any here with your dark powers.’ Except, we don’t know this demon’s title which is why I didn’t deem it worth telling you.”

Dave took in a deep breath and held it. He could feel John and Jade still watching the Strider and Lalonde show, not interrupting because they might make it worse. He didn’t know how they might do that though, of all of them, the two most prone to shoving their feet into their mouth were Rose and Dave. He let the breath out slowly. 

“Fine, let’s start then. Is this everything we need?”

“Just one more thing. We need an offering, one which will bring forth the right demon.”

She reached into the pocket of her dress and pulled out a small object that Dave couldn’t make out from his angle. She placed it in the centre of the middle circle. It was a keyring in the shape of a crab.

“Where did you even get that?”

“The aquarium. Do any of you have any more questions or can I start?”

They shook their heads. Rose inhaled deeply and closed her eyes. When she spoke, it was in a voice more melodic and detached than her usual voice, so she was clearly saying something she’d memorised. 

“I call upon the guardians of the four watch towers to watch over us and protect us in this ritual. May you grant us wisdom, creativity, strength and courage. I call upon the god and goddess and ask for them to be present in this circle and guide us from harm.”

Dave knew this part. It was similar enough to what she began with in her other ceremonies to relax him. Then she reached the next part. 

“I call upon the ancient beings of Alternia and grant them entrance to this realm, may you join us in this circle.”

She stopped. The room was still, no one spoke and nothing moves, except for the candles flames which kept flickering because fuck you that’s why. They’re candle flames they don’t give a fuck about dramatic pauses. This dramatic pause dragged on for a while though. 

Eventually John broke the silence.

“Sooo, is anything going to happen or what?”

Rose shrugged in a way that looked far too casual for it not to seem totally fake. 

“We’ve opened the gate, now the demon may or may not…”

She trailed off, and Dave was about to ask her why she had, then looked at where she was staring. The keyring was moving. It was just vibrating slightly to start off with, but as they watched it, the movements grew more and more violent, until it went right up to the level of an R rated movie, jumping up and down like nobody’s business, this shit was getting graphic. Although, nothing was really happening until it started to melt.

Dave felt far too close to the centre of the circle as the keyring just kept melting, completely fucking ignoring the rules of physics. It reduced itself to a puddle of thick red liquid that looked a lot like blood on the floor, and it kept expanding until it hit the edge of the circle, for which Dave was very glad. At least Rose knew how to make a functioning protective circle. The blood then it curled in on itself and piled up in a motion that made Dave’s brain hurt when he tried to describe it. It kept on going until it hit the height of a human being, then the churning mass resolved itself into a more human form. It looked like a person covered in blood though, with no distinct features, but as soon as Dave thought that, the outer layer fell away from the figure and straight to the floor, where it stayed. That might stain the floor, so thank god they hadn’t done this in the living room. He looked up at the figure and it looked nothing like the crab demon in the book. It was facing towards Rose, so Dace could see its profile. He noted that it had the same horns, and the same grey skin, but it looked like a young man in every other way, even though its clothes were slightly odd. It was wearing a skin tight black body suit with red stripes. Then the demon opened its (his?) eyes, and scowled at them.

“GREETINGS, WORTHLESS HUMANS. I AM YOUR GOD.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoy this chapter, it's the longest one so far. Comments are appreciated!

“Do you have to fucking shout? Calm the fuck down dude.”

Ok, so that probably wasn’t the best way to start a conversation with an ancient demon that could probably rend your soul from your body, but if Dave was perfectly fucking honest, he hadn’t really been thinking anything other than ‘loud angry voice’. He hadn’t exactly expected the spell or whatever the shitting hell Rose had just done to work, or prepared a marvellous speech or something. He had been expecting to sit awkwardly in silence until they gave up. Just because they brought Rose’s cat back to life didn’t exactly mean they were going to show up when they called like a desperate dog. He certainly wouldn’t, it didn’t even seem like they’d done much. He definitely didn’t anticipate that the demon’s first action would be to attempt to deafen them.

“Seriously though, who the fuck does that? A group of humans summon you and your first reaction is to yell at them about how superior you are? Are we meant to be quaking in fear right now, shaking in our goddamn boots? Yeah right, you’re not intimidating. You show up and start shooting shit about how important you are and it makes me think you’re overcompensating for…”

“Dave. Do you realise that you’re saying that aloud?”

Oh. The demon was staring at him, its eyes orange where they should be white and the irises were red like Dave’s, which was just seriously fucking disturbing. It looked somewhere between confused and annoyed, its brows knitted up in the middle like one of Rose’s unnecessary laptop cozies. Dave’s friends were also staring at him. John looked like he was trying not to laugh, barely able to keep a smile off his face. He totally failed his cool kid test. Jade looked like she found his rambling cute and Rose looked like she was done with his shit. So, her normal face. 

“Do you always just fucking run your mouth like this? Was I seriously fucking summoned by a human who has no filter between his think pan and his protein chute? What the fuck is wrong with you?”

The demon’s voice did not sound like anything from this dimension. He hadn’t really been listening to it when he was being shouted at, he had been too busy hoping it would fucking stop being so goddamn loud, but it really sounded inhumane. The ks sounded more like clicks, and it reverberated weirdly. Not like he was talking through a fan, but like someone had taken a recording of someone talking into a fan, the computer edited it so it was weird as fuck, maybe put some weird bug sounds over it. He might try and replicate it later. 

The demon was still talking.

“Seriously, why did you fucking summon me if all you were going to do is run your shit spewing trap? Did people get so fucking fed up of listening to you that you dragged me to this shitty dimension to force me to waste precious moments of my life staring in awe and revulsion at your horrible attempts to grasp the threads of a two-way conversation?”

“Actually, I am the one that summoned you.”

Rose’s face was mostly blank, she was almost as good as Dave at keeping a straight face, but he could see it in her eyes that she was so fucking close to acting like the world’s most emo cheerleader. She’d probably wear a purple and black uniform with ‘go demons’ written on it. This was her dream come true so she was probably pissing herself with excitement.

The demon looked over at her. 

“Why? Actually, fuck that, here’s a better question, how? None of us have been summoned for thousands of sweeps, I thought your pathetic species had finally forgotten how to and we’d be left in peace, never having to worry about social events being fucking ruined by you weird hairless monkeys ever again.”

“Oh, I found a book!”

Everyone turned to Jade. She looked almost as excited as Rose. Why were all of his friends and relatives into such weird shit?

The demon’s eyes widened in realisation, then it ran a hand over its face, looking, by some miracle, even more disgusted. 

“That fucking book. Oh man, the shit that guy asked us, you would not believe. I thought it had been lost forever and we were rid of it.”

Jade grinned, apparently completely unfazed by the fact that she was talking to an actual demon that could probably curdle all of the blood in her body.

“Nope! I found it in a cave, along with a whole bunch of other cool stuff! I thought Rose would find it interesting so I gave it to her!”

The demon looked as though she’d suggested that she routinely hit herself in the face for a living. “Do none of you have functioning thinkpans? What kind of intelligent life form  
takes a probably moldy and infected book from a cave and then gives it to people they care about? Did your lusus drop something on your head when you were a wriggler? What the fuck were you doing in a cave anyway?”

Dave put his face in his hands. The demon had made a terrible mistake. You do not ask Jade about her job unless you were prepared to sit through a ten-hour long lecture, complete with slideshow and handouts, you better go to the toilet beforehand because there are no breaks, the Harley train won’t stop for your bladder, stay away from your apple juice. He caught John’s eye, and his best friend pointed at the demon and mouthed ‘it’s an actual demon’. At least one person here was suitably surprised by this fact. Dave, while he hadn’t been expecting it, had just accepted it as part of life now. John is his best bro, his sister brought a cat back to life, and demons are real. Sounds about right. 

“I’m a junior archaeologist! I like to think of myself more as an explorer though, because I get to go to so many places! It’s the best job ever! I’m part of a large group of scientists, and when they get radio scans that show there are ruins in difficult to get to places, I travel over there with the reconnaissance team to look over it, and I find some of the coolest stuff! I probably should have handed the book over to the investigative team, but it just looked like something Rose would want!”

It hadn’t been the first-time Jade had snuck something out of a dig sight to give to them. Dave had a room dedicated solely to dead shit he’s found preserved in cool ways, and Jade had made many contributions to the collection.

“Are you that incredibly stupid? Do you want to get culled on the spot? I’ve been summoned by ignoramuses. Not that summoning me in the first place isn’t the hugest mistake of your miserable and short lives.”

Jade made eye contact with Dave across the circle, and frowned at him. He shrugged, he had as little clue as to what was going on as she did. 

“Why’s that?” asked John.

The demon laughed, like it’d heard the most ridiculously idiotic thing in the world. Smug prick.

“You’re the ones that read the book, you braindead shit rinser, you tell me! Or did you not get that far? Were you so eager to get your grubby human paws on a demon that you didn’t read ahead to see the exact degree to which you were chucking yourselves into the shit?”

Like a group of puppets all tied to a single stick, they turned to look at Rose. She looked distinctly uneasy. What the fuck was going on?

“Rose, what are they talking about?” asked Jade.

She glanced over at her, and then looked at the floor. She bit her lip. Whatever was going on, it wasn’t good, and that was making Dave feel hells of uncomfortable. Rose looked at the demon, who was smiling so wide it looked like his face would split in half, and bugs would spew out of it like in some b-list horror movie.

“What is your name and title?”

“Karkat Vantas, Knight of Blood, The One Who Protects -wait, don’t tell me you summoned me without knowing that. Holy shit you did! This is fucking incredible!”

“What are you going on about?”

The demon laughed even harder, and red fluid was leaking from its eyes.

“Why don’t you tell them, Rose. Say what you’ve done. Tell them exactly how you’ve clamped your walkstems together and merrily flung yourselves into the middle of the ocean, to be eaten alive by horrorterrors.”

“In the book, it spoke of a curse…” 

John interrupted. “A curse!?”

“Yes, please let me finish. It said that there was one demon who had been cursed so that anyone who summoned him would have to summon all others in the pantheon, or face the corruption of reality and the world falling apart around them. Or their own death.”

There was silence. The demon looked like he was having the best time of his life, almost doubled over from silent laughter. Jade looked alarmed, her face almost a screenshot from a horror movie from where her candle was painting her orange with dark black shadows. Dave couldn’t see John’s reaction because he was looking straight at Rose. Her poker face had completely and utterly collapsed, it was so fucking gone that stories were told about it from parent to child, and none of the children believed it existed in the first place. She looked like she was going to turn into a vomit volcano and spew all over them. 

She spoke very quietly. “I didn’t know it was you.”

“No shit! Sweet mother grub’s oozing vestigial third oral sphincter, how can you people be so stupid? Were you never school fed? Can you not read?”

“Your name was distorted!” she snapped. 

“Only my name? And you are so shit headed that you can’t put two and two together?”

“Lay off her!” 

Dave’s gaze flicked over to Jade, whose face was twisted up into a snarl. The demon turned to face her, so Dave couldn’t see his face, but he could hear the joy in his tone. 

Arrogant fucking asshole. 

“Oh, and none of this is your fault? You are obviously completely fucking innocent here. Congratu-fucking-lations, you just cursed all of your friends!” 

Both girls visibly recoiled at that. This has to fucking stop. Dave spoke over Karkat.

“Rose, was there anything else in the banishing spell?”

She looked at him and blinked slowly, taking a moment to process the question, then she shook her head. Good. Dave looked back at the demon, who had now turned to face him. He thought back to what the demon had said his title was, and almost froze when he realised that he hadn’t finished it. Ok, new plan, maybe he could convince him to leave.

“Ok, so you’ve cursed us, great fucking job, can you go away now? Go back to your hell dimension and gloat to all of your horned zoo buddies about how you boned a group of college kids.”

Karkat sneered at him. “Yeah right. If you want me gone, you’re going to have to banish me. Oh wait, you can’t! Looks like I’ll just stay here then. Move in here and watch as the world burns to ash around you, and when you are fucking desperate for some glimmer of hope, you will come to me and I will laugh in your pathetic faces and watch as your skin melts away from your fragile skulls. Perfect entertainment.”

And this guy had the nerve to say Dave had no filter. Back to plan A then. He thought back to what Rose had said a few days ago, about a demon’s last title being an elaboration on their first one. Knight of Blood, protector of something. Knight is to protecting as blood is to what? Dave had to push away thoughts of pain and swords and a rooftop in Texas. Why the fuck would someone be a protector of pain? What was blood if it wasn’t pooling out of him onto the floor while he curled up into a pathetic ball and thought about how weak he was?

Dave looked to his left, at Rose whose dark skin had become ashy and pale from fear, her eyes were glistening. Dave took in a deep breath and placed his bet.

“I banish you, Karkat Vantas, Knight of Blood, The One Who Protects Families, from this dimension, return to your home and do not touch any here with your dark powers. Now fuck off!”

The look on Karkat’s face was priceless. He seemed as shocked as he would be if the four of them had suddenly stripped off their clothing and revealed that they were wearing cancan dresses underneath and had begun dancing, while the telescope exploded like a confetti canon behind them, debris and broken glass raining down over them.  
The demon then imploded. His form began melting in reverse, liquefying but pulling inwards to a central point and shrinking, until there was only the crab keyring. It stayed mid-air for a second, before gravity remembered that it existed and decided to do its fucking job and wrenched it back to the ground like a kid tugs on a balloon, and it landed with a clatter in the centre of the group.

Dave stared at it quietly for a moment, trying to grapple with the information that had just been forcefully shoved down his throat, when Rose started to cry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh look, plot!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all of the comments on the last chapter! I would have responded to all of them individually, if I had anything to say other than 'thank you' and slightly cruel laughter at your expense. I hope you enjoy this week's chapter. As always, comments are appreciated and if you want to come and talk to me on tumblr, then my username there is the same as here!

The chalk on the floor was perfect, with the circle flawless, completely encompassing them and holding them in its safe embrace. The candles were warm and bright, but not blinding. Rose thought that the lines should have smudged, and the candles should be burning their eyes by now, but no, they were perfect. The pure white lines on the floor were barely even reflecting the light. It seemed comforting, and it was wrong, everything had gone wrong. Rose balled her hands up into fists in her lap, grabbing at her dress. There wasn’t a speck of dirt on it. She suddenly wanted to ruin it, because she had clearly ruined everything else. Her breath caught in her throat, wedged there, and she could only dislodge it with a sob that sounded wet and infantile even to her own ears. 

She had ruined everything. Their whole lives. Just because she wanted to summon a demon. Karkat was right, she was an ignoramus. She can’t even figure out that the one demon that isn’t named, the only one, might just be the one with the curse. The information had probably been obscured on purpose, gods she was thick. She rubbed her face against her shoulder, getting a line of tears and mucus on her dress. Good, that’s a little better. She distantly felt her body begin shaking as she started crying properly, but she didn’t pay that much attention. She’d dragged them into this. This was all her fault. She couldn’t just let it go, take her cat and be satisfied, no she had to go and fuck everything up. She had to prove herself right. As always. She gripped her skirt so tight she could feel the fabric dig into her palms and her nails dragged against her skin. If she held on a little tighter they might break the skin. 

She jumped slightly as Dave placed his hand over hers. The contrast was vivid, his pale almost translucent skin against hers. He gently pulled her fingers loose, and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. He pulled her against him, and she rested her head against his chest for a moment before pushing away. He had been right this whole time. Of course he had, he wasn’t completely convinced of her abilities like she was. How she had managed to convince herself this was a good idea, she didn’t know. She stood up, and refused to look at her friends.

“If you will excuse me, I wish to be alone for a moment.”

She then ran away. Technically speaking, she walked out of the room at a normal pace, but for all it mattered she ran away in the most metaphorical sense of the phrase. She managed to stop crying as she descended the staircase, because it would be a terrible end to a terrible day if she finished it off by falling to her demise from her staircase. Dave did warn her about those stairs, bro. She bit her lip hard to contain a laugh. If she started laughing now, she knew that she wouldn’t be able to stop. 

She made it to her room intact and only just had the awareness to shut the door behind her before she threw herself on her bed face first. Her nose crushed up against the purple sheets, making it difficult to breathe, so she rolled over onto her side and curled up into a ball, with her knees pressed to her cheeks. How is she going to fix this? Through her carelessness she had cursed them, so she had to be the one to undo it. There’s a way to break every curse, she just had to figure out how. The book must say. 

She sat back up again and slid off the bed. She reached for the drawer she’d shoved the translations into, and grunted when she had to sit up to get them. After fishing them out, she spread them out in front of her. She snatched up the nearest sheet and skim read it for any hint of anything useful, and when she deemed it irrelevant she put it down behind her. She flipped through the pages so quickly that she ripped a few of them before making piles depending on how useful they were. She almost tore one of them clean in half, shit, but thankfully it was going in the irrelevant pile so it didn’t matter that much. All she had to do was find a way to sort this out. She barely noticed when she had sorted all of them and her nose had begun to run and tears had begun to stubbornly make their way down her cheeks despite her willing otherwise. Aggressively, she scrubbed at her face with her sleeve as her eyes grew almost too blurry to read the paper in front of her. A knock at her door made her jump, and she turned to see that the door had been opened without her noticing. In the doorway stood Jade, who seemed reluctant to cross the threshold to the room without consent. Rose sighed. 

“You can come in.”

Jade gently pushed one of the stacks of papers away from Rose and sat in its place, near her but not quite in her personal bubble. She looked at the haphazard piles that loosely circled her, then looked at her face. Rose thought she must look rather disastrous from the way Jade’s eyes widened slightly.

“What are you doing?”

“Working out a way to break the curse. I’ve organised the translated pages of the grimoire based upon how likely it is that the material they contain will be of use, the ones most relevant are in that pile,” she pointed at the correct pile. No wait, that’s the wrong pile. She pointed at the one next to it, then frowned. She reached over to grab the page on the top to double check, then put it back. “That pile. Can you help me look through them?”

She didn’t wait for Jade to respond before shoving half of the papers into her arms, and she scrambled to get a grip on them.

“Rose, have you been crying?”

Goddammit. Did she need to mention it?

“That’s not important. I need to fix this.”

Jade reached over and rested her hand on Rose’s shoulder. She resisted the urge to shrug her off, so adjusted to the weight on her shoulder. Jade was pushing down slightly, applying pressure, so even if she did try to make her hand slide off, it most likely wouldn’t work.

“Rose, it’s ok to be scared.”

“Scared? I’m not scared. I’m just-gods Jade I ruined everything. I thought that I had everything managed. I had read every page of that book, front to back, I’d spent ages preparing, how did things go so disastrously wrong? The world is now most likely going to turn itself upside down and it will be entirely my fault.”

“Well, I wouldn’t say entirely.”

Jade was shuffling the pages idly in her hands.

“Well it’s not your fault.”

Jade didn’t seem convinced. “I was the one who gave you the book.”

Rose turned around so that she could face her properly. “So? You couldn’t have known that it would cause this. I spent days reading and translating it, I should have known better.”

“Don’t be stupid, how could you have known this would happen?”

“It said in the grimoire that there was a curse-”

“Oh, and you should just believe it? I read warnings about curses every day and I’m still here, and I’m fine.”

“Those weren’t written by an actual demon though.”

Jade scowled at her.

“You just want to take all the blame, don’t you? Well I won’t let you.” 

Rose thought up an argument to this point, and another, but she knew from one glance at Jade’s face that she simply wouldn’t stand for it, and would be able to come up with a perfect counterpoint to every single one. She sighed and leant against her, feeling as though she had taken hold of all of her energy and ripped it away, as Rose imagined she would rip weeds out of her garden. Jade wrapped an arm around her and held her for a moment. Which stretched into slightly longer than that. Neither of them spoke, but that was fine. 

After a few minutes, Jade gently pushed Rose off of her and got to her feet. She collected up all of the transcriptions and put them into one neat pile, which she picked up. Rose frowned up at her.

“What are you doing?”

Jade offered her a hand up, which she accepted. 

“I’m going to take all of your copies of the grimoire home with me, so you won’t be able to tire yourself out looking for a solution. Come on, let’s go see how our brothers are doing.”

Rose followed her out of the room, and decided not to mention the scanned copy of the translations saved on her laptop.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic now has over 100 kudos? Holy shit, thank you! I hope you enjoy this chapter, comments are appreciated!

The two boys were in the kitchen, cleaning up quietly. Dave was washing out the pot of glue, with limited success, and John was picking various objects up and putting them down again in a different place, vaguely attempting to look as though he was doing something constructive. He failed magnificently, but Rose appreciated the attempt none the less, even though it meant that her post was now on top of the bread bin, instead of where it should be. John noticed them first, turning to find somewhere to put the knife he was holding.

“Oh, hi Rose, are you feeling better?”

“Yes, thank you. The cutlery drawer is behind you.”

“I knew that.” John put it away, and Dave glanced over his shoulder, nodded at the two of them, then turned back to his work. She can talk to him later. A glance outside told her that it was getting quite late, and they all had classes in the morning, so she supposed that they should leave. Jade seemed to be thinking the same thing, because she pulled her phone out of her pocket and frowned.

“John, we should get going soon.”

“Right, you guys need our help cleaning up, or what?”

Dave finally finished cleaning the glue from his hands, and looked at Rose. She raised an eyebrow at him, and he pouted slightly and shrugged one shoulder before grabbing a hand towel.

“We’re fine, but you can stay for dinner before you leave if you like?”

John and Jade took their turn to exchange a look. The two were both far more expressive than Dave and Rose, so she didn’t necessarily need verbal confirmation of their decision.

“I’m sorry, Bec has been alone for way too long, so we’ve got to go.”

“Ok, give him my love. Dave, will you see them out?”

He threw the hand towel at her, which she caught, then opened the kitchen door and bowed dramatically, making a sweeping gesture that John and Jade should leave the room. John hugged Rose quickly, then went to wait in the hallway while Jade did the same, trying to negotiate the papers in her hands. She managed an awkward hug, then left. Dave saluted Rose before closing the door. 

She put the towel back on its hook and looked through the cupboards for something interesting for dinner. As she listened to them saying their farewells in the hallway, she realised that the events of earlier in the day had left her far too drained to actually cook, so she opened the fridge looking for something she could just shove in the microwave. Dave returned as she successfully withdrew two microwavable lasagnas. She held them up for his inspection, and he nodded approvingly. 

“Want me to set the table while you cook that?”

She placed them in the machine and turned it on. She contemplated the ironic value of eating a ready meal from fine china on a perfectly set table, and decided that it wouldn’t take too much time to do.

“Would you please?”

“On it.”

She grabbed two sets of cutlery before following him to the dining room, where he grabbed the table cloth from the bottom of the glasses cupboard. She watched as Dave spread the cloth over the table and straightened it. If Jade and John were still here, he would have done so with a flourish, for maximum irony, but it was just the two of them, and functioning at such levels of irony can get exhausting without an audience. Permanently functioning at low levels of irony is a lifestyle however, one which Rose was resigned to living with. It also was rather amusing.

Soon, they were sat eating their ready meals from the nicest plates they could find. They would have used the fine china, but it was hidden away in another room, and it would take far too long to retrieve it. They ate slowly, simply because Rose had put it in for too long, and if they ate any faster, they would burn the roofs of their mouths. Dave had poured himself some water into a champagne flute, while Rose had opted for a wine glass.

“So, I was thinking we could hang up the collage above the fireplace.”

“Absolutely not.”

“You are such a buzzkill, you should be arrested for the brutal murder of hundreds of innocent bees. You’ll endanger the ecosystem if you carry on like that. It would look perfect there. Guests would walk into the living room, see the classy as all fuck décor, then look at the fireplace, expecting to see some kind of creepy fucking painting, maybe like a beautiful lady, or a squid or something, but no there’s a shitty dragon.”

“Definitely not going to happen.”

“Please? For the irony?”

“No. I put too much time into getting the room to look like that to let you throw it all aside just for irony, however maybe if you find something ironic enough that fits in.”

Dave grinned. “Nice. What about just a canvas painted black. Like, they think it’s some abstract art, meant to show someone’s mood, or some shit, some modern art, but it’s literally just been painted black.”

Rose tapped her finger against the rim of her glass, considering.

“I like it. Oh, and speaking of art, how goes sweet bro and hella jeff? I’m afraid that I’m not caught up, I’ve been a little distracted.”

She couldn’t see for certain, but Rose would have bet a reasonable sum of money that Dave’s eyes had just lit up behind his glasses.

“Rose, it goes brilliantly. I would tell you about it, but I don’t wanna spoil it for you. I will say that the comments on it are hilarious, you should read them.”

“I’ll make sure to, your fans are truly quite something. I would like to clean up the circle first however. I assume that Jade took it down before coming to find me? And, most importantly, that someone held onto the demon?”

Dave finished his drink before answering. 

“Yeah, don’t worry about it. I’ve got the crabby bastard, and Jade took it down like a boss.”

“I should have done so before I left, sorry for running off like that.”

He shrugged in a way that completely failed to show nonchalance. 

“You were upset. It’s cool. I don’t think it’s your fault though. I mean, on one hand, it totally is, this was all your idea, but like, on the other hand you’ve gotta consider that you had no fucking idea that this was going to happen, none of us knew that this was going to work, let alone that it would end up as this huge clusterfuck.”

Rose scraped the remains of the sauce off of her plate. “You’re not upset with me, are you?”

“Nah. You didn’t plan for this to happen, so it’s no big deal. I’m not gonna flip my lid at you for something like that.” 

He didn’t look like he was lying. He did seem tense about something. He was talking less than usual, and he being very precise with how he cut up what little was left of his food, but he genuinely didn’t seem to be mad at her. She relaxed slightly, knowing that if he wanted to tell her what was eating him he would do so in his own time. They were silent as they finished up their dinner and took the dirty tableware out to the kitchen. They could take down the table later. Rose grabbed a small pot of strawberry yoghurt from the fridge, then darted up to her room to grab a bag for the crystals. She met up with Dave again in the hallway, and he handed her a spoon, and she gave him the bag, and they went to the observatory. 

The circle was smudged slightly from where one of the others must have walked over it, but other than that it looked fine. She knelt down and wiped away a smear and Dave walked around the edge of it. 

“So, what are we doing here, wiping off the whole thing? How long did this take you to draw?”

“A couple of hours?” Rose replied, as she sat down and began eating her yogurt. She hadn’t exactly been keeping track, but she did know that the final result was at least her fourth attempt.

“And we’re not going to wipe it off, because while I have no plans on bringing more ancient creatures to this realm to smite us with their motormouths, we might be forced to, if the curse is as real as Karkat acted like it was. It should be easier to leave it should the need to use it again arise. No, we’re going to take the candles and crystals, and that should be it.”

Dave picked up the candle nearest to him. “How many of these things did you even have up here?”

Rose frowned, and tried to remember the exact number. “Four grey ones for the demon himself, one each for the directions, one for the lord, one for the lady, one for the void. Eleven, I think.”

Dave pulled a face at her, and she realised that she’d said that with the spoon in her mouth, so she took it out and tried again. 

“That is a metric fuck ton. Isn’t it a bit excessive?”

Rose shrugged and shoved the candles in her half of the circle towards him.

“It’s how many the book said was needed. It specifies different amounts per demon, with specific colours for each one. Be glad this wasn’t one of the ones which needed more than ten.”

Dave crumpled his nose and picked up the rest of the candles, tucking them under his arm. He then knelt down to pick up the crystals and put them carefully in the bag. Rose gently kicked the one nearest her over to him, and it hit him in the leg before he could stop it. He picked it up and examined it.

“Did it specify the crystals as well?”

Rose scraped the rest of the yogurt from the edges of the pot, then answered. “Not exactly. It gave a few recommendations for ones to use, but generally they were the same as ones typically used for such rituals. It did however specify how to charge them, these ones required moonlight. I’m still not entirely sure why, even after meeting Karkat.”

Dave snorted. “He really was a piece of work, wasn’t he? He seemed over the fucking moon that he had totally boned us.”

Rose got up and made a quiet noise of agreement. He really had been remarkably different to her expectations. She took half of the candles from Dave, checked that they had everything, then switched the light off as they left the room. Dave continued talking as they walked down the stairs.

“Seriously, he’s a sick fuck for finding it funny. I’m half tempted to summon him again to knock the smug look from his face, and maybe a couple of those shark teeth out as well.”

“That doesn’t seem like a terribly good idea.”

“I know, I’m not gonna do it. I’m just saying that if I see him again, I’m gonna fucking deck him.”

When they reached Rose’s door, she kicked it open and they entered. She dumped the candles onto her desk, and Dave followed suit, then passed her the bag of crystals. She put them onto a bookshelf, and yawned. The emotional roller coaster of the day had really taken it out of her. She hugged Dave goodnight and he let himself out of the room. She righted the few candles that had fallen over then picked up her laptop. She knew full well that she shouldn’t look through the translations. If she was going to find a solution, it wouldn’t be at 11 o clock at night, but she couldn’t help herself, as her mind kept wandering back to the way she had failed everyone, no matter how hard she tried to put it out of her head. She wouldn’t even know what a solution would look like, but she read through the profiles of all of the demons again, and every section that mentioned the curse, until her eyes began to blur again, this time simply from fatigue. She turned the laptop off and tried to sleep. Eventually she dozed off, and she dreamed fitfully of the world burning down around her, and everything she touched caught ablaze.


	9. Chapter 9

Class seemed even more anticlimactic and boring than usual. Not that Dave hated his class, oh no he rather enjoyed it. But he rarely spoke to his classmates, as they were all pretentious as fuck movie buffs, the exact type of person you’d expect to be taking a film course. And it felt like his lecturers were a clamp clinging to the wheels of his car, with the car being his ability to get shit fucking done, slowing him down and stopping him from doing anything. When he had the opportunity to actually do shit in this class, he loved it, but damn sitting and analysing a film with a bunch of stuck up gits who think that every crumb of detail holds an oyster of meaning is boring as fuck. Dave has tried to inject meaning into every ounce of his creations before, to lace that shit in so much meaning and irony that you start crying picking apart those onion layers, but you just can’t make it so that every single sofa cushion describes the tragic backstory. Sometimes, the cushion is just a cushion and the shower curtain is blue because it’s blue, not because the character is depressed. But damn did his class want to over-analyse. 

So yeah, sometimes Dave zoned out. Especially the day after summoning a demon. He had held onto the demon’s keyring and brought it with him to class, for no real reason. He turned it over in his hands, running his fingers over the smooth surface. It’d been maybe twelve hours since they’d banished Karkat, and the image was still fresh in his mind, exactly how surreal he had looked, how pale Rose’s face had been, the way the candlelight flickered across the windows. He still wanted to replicate the noises that Karkat had made, but he had to wait until the professor let them onto the computers. The sound was still fresh in his mind, and he wanted to recreate it before he forgot it. Technically, he had time to make it last night, but he’d been so wiped afterwards that he just got into his bed and then was dead to the world, he slept like a log. Since he woke up though, his thoughts had been swimming with memories of last night, and how everything had gone pear shaped.

He didn’t blame Rose, how could he after seeing how terrified she looked? Sure, he wasn’t impressed, but she was scared and he knew that she’d planned for an eternity to get it right, and it had still gone south faster than a bird in the winter. Karkat though? He wanted to sock that guy in the jaw. He wasn’t convinced that the curse was real though. They’d seen no evidence that the world was going to rip itself into tiny little pieces like a universe sized shredder had eaten it, so he wasn’t that fussed. The fucker was probably just trying to make themselves wet themselves and be on edge, getting some kind of kick out of it. Getting his rocks off to the thought of a bunch of college kids pissing the bed, the bastard. 

“What the fuck?” 

Dave snapped back to attention and looked across the room. One of his classmates had reached into their bag to get a flask of coffee, and they were staring into it. They poured the contents out into their hand, and several coffee beans tumbled into view. 

“That’s very funny, Alex, but if you’re done, can we get back to the topic?”

The kid frowned into their palm, and muttered under their breath, but ultimately, refocussed on the lesson. Dave however was even less interested than before. He was pretty sure that it wasn’t that kid pulling a prank, and was in fact motherfucking demon shenanigans. He looked out of the window for more signs of the world tearing itself apart, and stared in horror as flower bed grew at an accelerated rate, stretching up towards the sun, before crumbling in on themselves, wilting and dying, turning grey before his eyes.   
Starting out of his stupor, Dave hurriedly packed all of his stuff up and shoved it into his backpack that he slung over his shoulder. He left the room, giving a quick feeble excuse of sudden sickness, and fumbled his phone out of his pocket to call John and Jade. Rose should still be at home; her class didn’t start for another hour. John picked up as he was climbing into the car, so he tucked it against his ear as he strapped in. 

“Dave? What’s up, I’m in class?”

“What’s up is that the world is falling apart. Time is unravelling and we need to sort that the fuck out. Casa Lalonde in ten minutes dude, be there or be stuck watching the world light itself on fire then fly into the fucking sun. Which would be redundant, because it’s already on fire, but you know what, it’s gonna do it anyway. Get Jade.” He hung up and pulled out of the parking lot. He may have pushed a few speed limits on the way home, but he thought that if the laws of physics were taking a day off, the laws imposed by the government could kindly go fuck themselves. 

He got home in record time and left his bag in the car, pausing only to fumble his keys out of his pocket. He hipchecked the door open, and stood in the hallway.

“Rose? We have a problem, where are you?”

He didn’t get a reply, but there were the sounds of a scuffle and Rose cursing from the kitchen, so he cautiously went that way, only to see his sister chasing a chicken around the room. It suddenly darted towards him, and her eyes widened.

“Close the door! Don’t let it get away!”

He slammed the door shut, and Rose lunged forwards to catch the chicken. She belly-flopped the floor, but she had the bird cradled in her arms. Grumbling under her breath, she struggled to her feet, which was a challenging feat while still holding onto a sentient mass of feathers and hate. Dave looked around for somewhere to put it, but they didn’t exactly have a chicken coop lying around. They could leave it in here, but with a bucket or something over it.

“Hold on for one sec, also, Jade and John should be here in a bit.”

Rose was gently stroking the panicked animal as it made meager attempts to escape to continue its merry tour of the house. He wasn’t entirely sure, but it had either come from the packet of chicken strips in the freezer, or the eggs. Rose was staring at it as if it was the first time she’d seen a resurrected animal. 

“Dave, what is going on?”

“Gimme a second, geez.”

There was an empty washing basket in his room, so he ran upstairs to grab it. It was buried under a stack of various objects he didn’t have the time to look at, so he just pulled it out from under them, causing them to topple to the floor. He could look through the mess when the linear progression of time wasn’t becoming more of a myth ever passing second, for whatever a second counted as. A car could be heard pulling up in the driveway, so he bolted into the kitchen. Rose was still standing there, holding the slightly calmer chicken. She looked very tired for someone who had probably only been awake for a few hours.

“Put it on the floor, this should keep it from running around the house where Jaspers can eat it.”

She did just that, and he put the basket over it. The doorbell rang, and Rose went and let their friends in, so while she was gone he made the impulsive decision to grab the microwave and put it on top of the basket, well and truly trapping the chicken. Maybe they could find some food for it later. After looking up what chickens eat. Rose returned to the kitchen, with John and Jade following her. They looked like they’d run all the way here despite driving, with them both still holding their bags, and Jade was only half wearing her cardigan. Rose looked around them and crossed her arms.

“Will someone please tell me exactly what the fuck is happening?”

“The curse is what’s happening. Time is collapsing in on itself faster than a stack of cards made in a hurricane. We’ve got to summon a demon, now.”

Her jaw dropped, and she froze momentarily, processing the information. It was almost as if the puzzle pieces of the sudden chicken and their early return were visible as they clicked together in her mind. Then she snapped back into action, business as usual. 

“Right. I haven’t had time to charge the new crystals, so we’ll have to use the ones from last night, I think I know someone who may be of help, I looked through it last night”

“What do you mean you looked through it last night, you don’t have the grimoire?”

Rose waved a hand vaguely in Jade’s direction, dismissing her concerns with a flick of her wrist. She’ll probably feel guilty about that later.

“I still have a scanned copy on my laptop. I’ll turn it on and double check the details, could one of you please go and get the crystals and set them up?”

Jade frowned at her, clearly disapproving, but she nodded and rushed off to Rose’s room. After hesitating for a second, John followed her. Seeing as Jade was the only other person in the house who knew how to set up a circle properly, she may has well have just asked Jade to do it in the first place. Leading Dave into the living room, she shouted to them over her shoulder.

“They’re on the bookshelf, in a bag, you can’t miss them!”

“Got it!”

Dave didn’t know if she meant she had found them or if she was just saying that she’d understood Rose, but it didn’t really matter. Dave sat down on the sofa while Rose grabbed her bag and pulled her laptop from it. It was reassuring to see that it wasn’t slowly crumbling into a useless pile of rust just yet. Everything in the house seemed to be fine for the moment, except for the chicken, but they still needed to move fast. Rose tapped impatiently at her laptop as it booted up, and flung herself down next to Dave. He wrapped an arm around her as she typed in the password. It was unnecessarily long, probably a stanza from a poem or something. Rose took his hand and drew a spiraling pattern over his knuckles, because she was terrible at waiting. As soon as the desktop screen loaded she opened up her files and resumed tapping idly while they caught up with her. The stairs creaked loudly as John and Jade thundered up them, and Rose opened up the scanned documents. They were high quality scans, as Dave expected, so he had no more trouble reading Rose’s writing than he usually did. She scrolled to the relevant pages, and hovered her mouse over a section of writing on one of them. 

“It says here that this demon has the ability to control space. I believe that might balance it out.”

Dave shrugged. “Sounds good to me. Do you have what you need to summon them?”

Rose quickly skim read the document in front of her. “Yes, I think so. You go and join the others upstairs, I’ll grab the candles and join you in a minute.”

She pushed the computer off of her lap and onto the cushion beside her as she got up. Dave then headed up to the observatory.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was slightly shorter than usual because I had an exam this morning that meant i couldn't spend as much time on it as I would have liked, so sorry about that. This will probably be the last chapter before Christmas, so I hope you enjoy this, and that you have a good winter festive season of your choice! Comments are appreciated, as always!

Jade and John were sat on the floor with their backs to Dave when he entered the observatory, talking in what they probably considered quiet voices, but were in fact loud enough to be heard from the bottom of the staircase. They were apparently arguing about whether or not Rose should have told Jade about the scanned copy of the grimoire, with John pointing out that it was because she kept a copy that they were able to fix the situation right now. Jade picked up one of the green candles and brandished it at him, clearly about to make a point, but Dave interrupted by clearing his throat very loudly. 

Jade’s eyes snapped to him, then away and her jaw clamped shut. John glanced over his shoulder at Dave, then lit the candle in her hand. If they wanted to talk about his sister’s honesty, they could do it without him around. They all knew she had issues with being upfront, but she was working on them. She wasn’t going to a therapist or anything like that, but was instead reading through a metric fuck ton different text books, aside from the ones she needed for her course, and sitting with Dave to talk about their respective feelings once a month, in an event which Dave likes to call their monthly amateur armchair therapy mind un-fucking bonanza, while Rose calls it their monthly mutual problem solving session. Dave likes his name better. 

The two had almost finished setting up the circle for use, the only thing left to do was light the remaining candles. The room looked remarkable different with the green lights, creating a very different atmosphere, a much eerier one. Probably something to do with green being a cool colour, while red is a warm one, or to do with the looming threat of the end of time as a construct. 

A groaning noise that did not sound like it came from either of the other two broke Dave from his thoughts, and he turned only to watch in horror as the telescope that had been standing in this room for years, unmoving like a fucking champ, an undefeated champion boxer who cannot be moved, unless you are Rose Lalonde, who just shoved it to the side of the room like it was a slightly larger than usual pencil shaving, began to rust and fall apart in front of them. 

After a second of sitting in shock and staring, Jade and John jumped to their feet and backed away from the collapsing pile of metal. It leant towards them, and Dave fully expected it to hit the floor and shatter outwards, like an urn that held a dead grandmother’s ashes tumbling off of the mantelpiece, shattering on impact and getting nanna’s remains all worked into the expensive rug your dad bought from Russia, but instead it just continued to rust and gently fall to the ground, like orangey brown snowflakes, creating a neat pile on the floor. It didn’t even reach the edge of the outer circle. 

They were still staring at it when Rose ran up the stairs a few seconds later. She opened the door, and stood there, staring at them, who were staring at the pile of rust, which was staring at nobody and generally doing a whole lot of nothing because it was in fact, not a sentient object capable of such feats. 

“What are you doing?”

Dave waved a hand in the general direction as he finally managed to wrench his attention away from the narrowly avoided threat. 

“Wasting time that we don’t have watching time fall apart.”

“Right.”

Still in a kind of haze, as though they themselves were moving much slower than everything else, the four of them sat down in their respective places. Rose leant over the circle and straightened up a few of the crystals, then nodded. She pulled a keyring from her back pocket and set it down in the centre circle, then sat for a moment. Dave crossed his legs and waited for her to begin. He watched the some from the candle in front of him spiral upwards, and Rose spoke.

“I call upon the god and goddess, and ask for them to be present in this circle and guide us from harm.”

Dave frowned. He glanced over at Rose, and her eyebrows were drawn so close together that they looked like they were one singular entity, and her eyes were so tightly closed they may have been fused shut. She had missed a bit. She had missed quite a few bits actually, because she barely spent any time setting the circle up.

“Aren’t you going to cast the circle first?”

“I’m abbreviating. We don’t exactly have the time for such things.”

Dave wasn’t sure that that was safe. Rose had stated before, many times, that the circle was set up for their protection, to keep the powers of the demon contained, and if they didn’t set it up properly, then the unholy forces of darkness could seep into their reality and rend their flesh from their bones. 

It looked like Rose was ready to take that risk.

“I call upon the ancient beings of Alternia and grant them entrance to this realm, may you join us in this circle.”

Like before, nothing happened immediately, but because they were expecting it, the anticipation didn’t die down in the slightest. It built up, like a tower of Jenga bricks being played with by drunk engineering students. It’s all going to collapse at their feet and possibly knock a drink over, spilling it on their $30 t-shirt, ruining it forever, leading to a fist fight then a trip to the hospital. 

The keyring was a moth this time. It probably wasn’t from the aquarium, but Dave wouldn’t be that surprised if it was, it’d been a while since he last went, they may have a butterfly house there for all he knows. It’s equally likely that Rose ordered it from online. 

While Dave was staring at it and considering its origin, it twitched. Dave braced himself for melting, but that didn’t happen. It didn’t seem to be moving at all, but unless his eyes were playing tricks on him, it was getting bigger. It was spreading out very slowly to fill the offered space, and he was suddenly acutely aware of the fact that they didn’t cast the circle properly at all. He hoped that Jade had put up some form of protection while he and Rose were talking downstairs. He tried to make eye contact with her but she was staring at the demon that was forming in front of them. 

It was starting to take on a humanoid shape, having thankfully stopped before it reached the edges of the inner circle. It looked like someone sitting curled up on the floor, then it began to move like a human, bending so that they were sitting up, and standing. It didn’t look like they had separate legs though, instead they appeared to be either wearing a dress of they had their legs fused together. By now it was impossible to distinguish which parts of the demon were from which part of the keyring, and they were all one uniform colour, a deep green. The demon then moved their arms, running their hands over their whole body and the layer of colour fell away from them, leaving behind the figure of a person in a long black and green dress with pale white skin, sharp teeth and sharp horns. 

It was a demon vampire. Unless vampires were automatically demons, then it was just a more specific type of demon. The demon opened their eyes, and they were yellow and green, reminiscent of acid. Unlike Karkat, they didn’t immediately run their mouth, and instead regarded the group, turning on the spot to see all of them. They turned to face Rose, and she was staring up at them like this was much more like what she had been expecting the first time. She spoke quietly.

“Kanaya Maryam, it is an honour to meet you.”

The demon smiled, and replied in a voice that was deeper than Dave would have expected, yet still very alien sounding.

“Likewise, Rose Lalonde.”


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy new year people! I was going to get this up last week, but life happened. Comments are appreciated, as always, I hope you enjoy this!

If it weren’t for the fact that she was an otherworldly being from another dimension with indescribable powers capable of destroying their existence with a snap of her fingers, Rose would have called Kanaya Maryam beautiful. She was poised and elegant, her hand on her hip just so, her makeup flawless, her hair curled perfectly. The contrast between the bright green of the hems of her dress and the black was simply breath taking, and the way only the points of her fangs were exposed was…perhaps Rose found her beautiful despite this. She spoke, and when she said her name Rose thought that maybe despite wasn’t exactly the word she was looking for. 

She was suddenly very aware of how unsophisticated she looked in comparison. Jeans and a t-shirt were fine for going to a psychology lecture, but not exactly the ideal attire for greeting a demon. Especially not one that knows her name. Somehow.

“How, pray tell, do you know my name?”

Kanaya tilted her head slightly to the side, the suggestion of a smile on her lips.

“Karkat mentioned it after you summoned then banished him. He was rather irritated by it to say the least.”

Right. That was what as expected. It would be ridiculous to think that perhaps she had heard of her independently, obviously. For all Rose knew, she and Karkat were close friends who spoke often, maybe even more than that. It was none of her business anyway. And there were far more pressing matters at hand.

Nothing seemed to be aging or regressing faster than was natural, so Rose cautiously deemed the plan a success. Time could continue onwards as scheduled. Now they just needed to politely ask Kanaya to leave and they could continue on with their day. Though, it’s hardly as though they were in any rush, and it would be rude to do so straight after meeting her, having barely done more than exchange greetings. 

Kanaya was still staring at her, with one perfectly plucked eyebrow arched.

“Why exactly did you summon me?”

Good question. And posed so well. Kanaya’s voice was fascinating. Clipped in a way that put emphasis on every word, and there was a slight vibration behind each letter, the same as with Karkat. Unlike Karkat’s, it was smooth and deep, calming in a way. She could listen to it all day. 

“We were running out of time, very literally as a matter of fact.” 

A crease appeared between Kanaya’s eyebrows as she frowned. 

“Oh? What exactly do you mean by that?”

Rose gestured at the debris which used to be the telescope. It’ll be rather costly to replace, but it’s not like she was doing anything else with her dear departed mother’s money. 

“I mean that recently various objects had become untethered from the passing of time. Well, as recently as one can say when such a situation is occurring. Twelve hours since we summoned Karkat, specifically. He claimed that it was something to do with a curse.”

Kanaya’s mouth made a small round shape, her lips framing her fangs. 

“Just to clarify, was Karkat the first Alternian that you summoned?”

“Yes.” It sounded more like a question than an affirmation, but the way that Kanaya looked deeply concerned unsettled Rose.

“I’m so sorry. You shouldn’t have summoned me.”

Rose opened her mouth to reply, but Jade asked first. 

“Why not?”

She tore her eyes away from Kanaya and saw that her two friends were looking on with confusion, while Dave had his lips pressed in a thin flat line, probably looking at Rose behind his shades, but she couldn’t tell. She doubted that he was impressed with how she had managed to ignore them completely for the last five minutes. Jade continued.  
“Is it something to do with the curse?”

Kanaya clasped her hands in front of her and bit her lip slightly. How she did that without it bleeding, Rose had no idea. 

“There’s an order in which we must be summoned to break the curse. Karkat is first, but I am not second, meaning that you have to banish me. Now.”

Involuntarily, Rose jerked backwards. That was not what she had expected to hear. She didn’t know what she had been expecting, but that wasn’t it. 

“Why? Can’t you choose to leave?”

Kanaya shook her head violently, making her hair wrap around one of her horns. 

“I’m afraid not. The curse prevents it.”

Maybe if all the curse did was make Kanaya stay around, it wasn’t such a bad thing. At least if she was in the circle, the world wasn’t falling apart. She could stay here in the observatory, and Rose could come up and talk to her, and have tea. Though, unfortunately, there was almost definitely more to the curse than that, nice as that idea might be. Though, looking back, it was somewhat disturbing. Rose shook her head quickly to dismiss the thought. 

John gasped beside her, and Rose turned quickly to see what he was looking at, and then gasped herself. While summoning Kanaya had apparently reaffirmed time’s grip on the   
world, it had had other consequences. 

“Kanaya, you’re a demon of space, right?”

The voice was so deadpan it had to be Dave that spoke. No one else seemed to be able to get a word out. 

“That is correct.”

Rose could see why they had to banish Kanaya. Demon of space indeed. It was suddenly evident to all in the room that space referred not only to the area containing stars, planets and meteors, but the actual mass and matter objects were made up of. And it was also evident that Kanaya’s presence could affect those properties. Which meant that a book that Rose had left in the corner of the room now took up considerably more space than a book should. If Rose now attempted to turn the page, it would require considerable effort and also a step ladder. Rose doubted that she would be able to see the title if she stood, though John and Jade most likely could. 

“So, can you turn that back?”

Rose had difficulty turning to see Kanaya’s response. The book was taking up a considerable amount of her attention, and also her brain power to process, the way it had suddenly more than tripled in size. She managed, and saw the Kanaya appeared to be attempting to bite her way through her lip. 

“I’m afraid not. You have to banish me now, so something worse doesn’t happen.”

Worse, such as the floor under them shrinking so they fall down into the living room? Or worse, as in the pile of rust expanding until it buries them. Or worse as in…Rose looked at the circle, and remembered how quickly she had cast it. Worse as in Kanaya’s powers weren’t as confined as they should be. Worse as in the circle wasn’t working. Worse as in they weren’t anything close to safe and Kanaya’s powers could affect them. Rose didn’t let herself think about those possibilities. They were somewhere between comedic and horrific. 

She attempted to speak, but couldn’t find her voice. She locked eyes with Jade, who nodded slightly. Hopefully Jade knew the banishing spell. If any of them did, it would be Jade.

“I banish you, Kanaya Maryam, Sylph of Space, The One Who Heals Matter, from this dimension, return to your home and do not touch any here with your dark powers.”

Kanaya smiled, and then in less than a heartbeat, she was gone. She had shrunk so quickly their mortal minds couldn’t handle it, so instead of putting in an approximate motion, there was just a short jump from demon to keyring, like a short gap in their memories that was skipped right over, and Jade was the only one fast enough to reach out and catch her before she hit the ground. 

Sitting in shocked silence seemed to be the thing to do, but John apparently didn’t get the memo. He got to his feet and walked over to the frankly ridiculous book, completely ignoring the non-existent circle and peered at the title. As she’d thought, he was just tall enough to reach the top. 

“Well, if we thought Colonel Sassacre’s book was too big before-”

“You’re kidding me.” Dave got up and was trying to see the book title before Rose could blink. He quickly walked around to look at the title etched into the spine of the book and doubled over laughing. This was probably due to delayed shock more than anything.

Jade caught Rose’s eye and shrugged. They would be talking later, but right now, they had to get up and see what the boys found so funny. They rose and joined them, and couldn’t contain their laughter. It was, in fact, an even larger copy of Colonel Sassacre’s Daunting Text of Magical Frivolity and Practical Japery.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone who has read this so far, I hope you all enjoy this chapter! Comments are appreciated!

They left the observatory, trying to decide what to do with the book. Frankly, Rose thought that there wasn’t much that could be done. It didn’t bother her too much, it wasn’t as though she ever read it, she had it more out of ironic reasons than anything else. If the volume was even larger then surely its ironic factor would only increase exponentially. She wasn’t exactly an expert on this, but she was certain that Dave would agree. He seemed to find it amusing enough. 

As they approached the living room, Rose heard a noise that filled her with dread. She had somehow forgotten about the ten minutes she had spent chasing a chicken around the room. The same chicken which was now trapped under a washing basket and a microwave. Why a microwave she had no idea, but it was making distressed chirping noises.

Rose had no time to react as Jade pushed her way past her and ran into the kitchen. Rose stumbled but caught herself, then looked at John, as if expecting him to know why his sister was acting like this. He shrugged. Right, as if anyone ever knew why Jade did anything. The followed her into the kitchen.

Jade was carefully removing the microwave and trying to slot it back into the place it had come from, but was having difficulty navigating it around the kitchen utensils that were in the way, so Dave quickly took it from her and pushed everything else out of the way. Jade then knelt down onto the floor and tried to pet the chicken through the holes. 

“What are you doing?”

Jade quickly looked up at Rose, glaring slightly. 

“Why do you have a chicken in your kitchen?”

Her tone implied that if Jade didn’t like the answer, justice would be quick and painful.

“It was here when you came in, didn’t you notice it?”

Jade turned back to the chicken, which seemed calmer now. It was letting Jade stroke it at least. 

“No I didn’t. I was a bit busy.”

Right. They had summoned the demon as soon as they had walked in, meaning Jade didn’t have the time to see what they had been doing. She quite possibly thought that they kept a chicken in the kitchen for recreational purposes. Whatever that might mean.

“Right. Well that chicken used to be an egg up until quite recently, enjoying its short life span in our refrigerator, until the curse took it into its grasp and wrenched it into full adulthood.” It could also have been any of the other food in their refrigerator, but Rose doubted that Jade would enjoy thinking that her new friend was resurrected. Even though she seemed perfectly okay with Jaspers. Although, she may not have seen him yet. Rose hoped that the cat wouldn’t walk in, as Jade didn’t need to see two animals that should be dead in one day. “I’m not entirely sure what we should do with it.”

Jade carefully lifted the basket off of the bird and took it into her arms. It seemed content to let her hold it. She smiled sweetly at it. 

“I can keep it.”

Behind Rose, John made a choking noise. “You mean I have to keep it?”

Jade frowned at him. “No, I’ll look after it.”

John crossed his arms over his chest, doing a masterful job of looking unimpressed. “How long is it until you’re out of town again? A few weeks? You can’t take a chicken with you to Egypt, Jade.”

Rose could understand John’s point. Jade already left Bec with John on her longer trips, she certainly wouldn’t be able to keep a flightless bird with her at all times. 

Jade mimicked her brother’s pose and expression perfectly, an exceptional feat with a chicken wedged under her arm. Their likeness really was uncanny when they did that. Rose wondered if people thought that of her and Dave. Probably. 

“John, please? You can look after a chicken for a few weeks, I’m not asking you to take care of it all the time.”

John threw his hands in the air. “You kind of are!”

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are. You’re almost never home! Do you even know how to take care of a chicken? Wouldn’t Bec eat it?”

Rose watched as Dave snuck around the edges of the room to stand next to Rose. He appeared to be trying to be as small as possible, as if he was hoping that they wouldn’t notice him and drag him into the argument. Rose felt much the same, but was willing to intervene should they be unable to resolve it themselves. 

“Bec wouldn’t eat them! And it’s not like we can just leave the chicken here! Or abandon it somewhere!”

They were both making wild hand gestures now, and Dave and Rose took a few steps back to avoid being hit, though Jade managed to not drop the bird. It was however making some agitated noises now. She doubted that the other set of siblings even recognised that they were still in the room at this point.

“We could donate it to a shelter!”

Jade made a noise that sounded close to a growl. “Fine!”

“Fine!”

Rose and Dave looked at each other, and Dave shrugged. The argument seemingly over, Rose approached Jade. She rested a hand on her shoulder and the other girl turned to face her sharply.

“You can leave the chicken here, and we’ll donate it to a shelter in the morning.”

Jade stroked the bird until it was placated. She didn’t meet Rose’s eyes as she spoke.

“No, I think I’ll do that. You don’t have any other chickens lying around here, do you?”

“Nope, just the one.”

Jade then met Rose’s gaze, and Rose suddenly felt like she was gripped by the throat, pinned by a wolf. 

“Are you sure, or are you lying to me again?”

Rose heard Dave and John wince behind her. She had been expecting this conversation, but not so soon, not quite that harshly. Rose looked at the ground, and inhaled deeply.

“I should have told you about the copy on my laptop. I shouldn’t have lied to you. I wanted to keep a copy because I needed– no, I wanted to do something and I felt useless without it. I know you were just trying to help me, and that you were doing your best. I hurt you by lying to you and not following your good advice. I’m didn’t mean to, but in my selfishness, I did so regardless. I’m sorry.” 

The room was silent. Rose could feel them staring at her. Gods, she sounded like she was just reading out of one of her self-help books. Rose risked glancing up at Dave, who gave her the tiniest smile. He also gave her a less tiny thumbs up. She really shouldn’t feel proud of herself for that, but she did. She then looked at Jade, and the warmth in her chest cooled slightly. Jade was staring at her, as if she had grown cat ears from the top of her head. Jade then broke into a smile.

“Thank you! For apologising, that is. Apology accepted, just try not to do it again.” 

Rose felt her eyebrows jump despite herself. She hadn’t expected the issue to be resolved so easily, but then this was Jade. She was probably still somewhat upset, but she wasn’t going to press it, not after Rose had apologised. It would probably be for the best if Rose didn’t bring up the fact that Jade had also clearly stayed up reading through the texts, enough for her to be able to list off Kanaya’s titles. She didn’t want to push it, not right now. 

The chicken clucked under Jade’s arm, and reclaimed their attention. 

“I think we should get going then. We have to get this little guy to a shelter, and get to classes.”

“Shit, it’s still the middle of the day! What time is it?”

Dave pulled his phone out of his pocket, almost dropping it in the process, and checked the time, then swore again.

“Fuck, it’s the middle of a lecture. I need to go, we have an exam soon.”

Rose had probably missed her first lesson, but she also had classes. They all hurriedly gathered up their stuff, which wasn’t much on Jade and John’s half as they had left it in their car, then quickly got into their respective vehicles and drove back to the campus.

Rose was in the passenger seat of Dave’s car, tapping at the dashboard ceaselessly. Dave didn’t seem to mind, he just looked over at her when they hit a red light and asked her if she was ok. She nodded silently, which he seemed to accept, and then they went onto their separate classes. 

The rest of the day passed uneventfully. Rose concluded that she should just leave the book alone, not summon anymore demons unless it was absolutely necessary, due to the curse. But they had to wait to see what would happen before they could do anything. 12 hours. Which would be the middle of the night, unless Rose was mistaken. 

Over dinner, Rose spoke with Dave about what could possibly happen next, as well as more banal topics such as that guy in Dave’s class who wears the same shirt every day, Rose’s argument with one of her professors, whether Jade was going to let the argument drop as they had both done the exact same thing, and whether Jade would give the chicken away. Considerably more talk of Jade than usual. Dave concluded that if they needed to summon the time demon then time would start doing what it did before and they should just hope that their beds don’t turn into trees while they’re trying to sleep on them. He also thought that the guy in his class needed to vary his wardrobe, perhaps with SBAHJ merch, that Rose totally smoked her lecturer, that Jade wasn’t going to drop the argument in a million years, and that he had no idea what she was going to do with the chicken. 

They went to bed not long after eating, and slept soon enough after that. Or at least , Rose did, Dave probably stayed up drawing shitty comics or whatever it was he did that caused him to have such dark and heavy bags under his eyes. 

She slept somewhat peacefully until the landline phone rang in the middle of the night. She got up, rubbing her eyes, and mentally composing a speech for whoever it was that decided that this was a sensible time to call someone. Dave reached the phone before her, looking very awake for the hour, confirming Rose’s suspicions that he wasn’t sleeping. He answered the phone. 

“Who are you and what the ever-loving fuck do you want?...Jade?....What?...WHAT?!”

Dave’s eyebrows had crept higher and higher up his face over the duration of the conversation until they were so close to his hairline that to come any closer would make them need an R rating. Rose held her hand out, asking for the phone. Dave passed it over to her. 

“Hi Jade, what is it?”

Jade’s voice from the other end was panicked. 

“There are children!”

It was far too late/early for this. Rose wanted a cup of coffee. She sighed softly. 

“Jade, you’re not making any sense.”

Jade’s tone did not sound any less distressed, but she took a deep breath anyway.

“There are children here in the house, and they look just like our grandparents.”

Rose frowned at Dave, who made a helpless gesture. He seemed slightly shell-shocked. 

“Jade, what?”

“I’m saying that I think the curse made our dead grandparents come back as children, Rose! And I don’t think it’s just them. I think your parents probably are alive too.”

Rose dropped the phone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :)


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well this now has 200+ kudos, so thank you so much! I hope you enjoy this chapter, comments are appreciated, and if you want to find me on tumblr, I'm futureshieldmaiden there too!

The bag of cat food was in the highest cupboard in the kitchen, which was too high up for either Dave or Rose to reach it unaided. There was a small wooden stepladder under the kitchen sink. It was old, the paint was fading, and whenever Dave used it without shoes on, he got splinters in his feet. So, he didn’t use it. Instead, he stood on the counter below it and reached up. If anyone ever walked in on him, he would make up a bullshit reason as to why he did it. Nobody had yet though. Rose had once heard him fall and come to investigate the noise, but he’d pretended it was a planned gravity test. Rose had just raised her eyebrows, forming her ‘I don’t believe you, but I’m going to drop it’ expression, and then left.

Getting the bag from the cupboard was a difficult task. He nearly hit himself in the face opening the door, so he ducked under it. He grabbed the bag, pulled it towards him, nearly dropped it on his foot, then lowered it onto the counter between his feet. He then closed the door without decapitating himself, sat down on the counter, slid to the floor and almost slid too far, because he was only wearing socks, with no grip at all. He caught himself before he could land on his butt and cause Rose to leave her room. He didn’t want to disturb her. She was too busy getting ready to leave. 

Dave had frozen after receiving The News. Rose had turned into a compact whirlwind of action and speech. It would be kind of funny, considering she must have only been asleep for a few hours, and Dave would have usually commented about it, but he hadn’t really spoken since he’d answered the phone. He’d stood there, next to the phone, as Rose darted back into her room to get dressed. He had slowly picked the phone up and put it back, hanging up on Jade and John, even though they had probably hung up already.  
Dave wouldn’t know, he hadn’t been listening. 

Rose had come back out again a few seconds later, to see him, stuck in place next to the phone like a sentry guarding it. Or like a tree, not moving. She had paused. It had honestly looked like someone had hit the pause button on her, the way she stopped moving for a second, her face blank as she looked at Dave. Then she unfroze, and softly told him to feed the cat.

Dave kind of hated it. The way she treated him like he might break when he was like this. But he also kind of needed it, so he kept his complaints to himself. Not that he felt much like he was able to talk anyway. So he fed Jaspers. He wasn’t entirely sure if the undead cat needed food, but if Rose told him to do it, he was going to do it. Just to stop him from thinking about…anyway.

The bowl for the food was in the hallway, and the bowl for the water was in the living room. Rose was planning on getting one of the fancy water fountains, so they could put them next to each other, but she had been distracted lately and hadn’t gotten around to it. It’d probably be a while before they did get one, considering what had been going on. 

The rebirth of their parents. 

Moving on. 

He picked up the food bowl. It looked like it still had a little bit of food in it. Was he supposed to clean it out, or just put the new food on top of it? It wasn’t like there was anything wrong with the food. Probably. He sniffed it. It seemed fine. The asshole cat wouldn’t be able to tell anyway, unless he’d gained some magical demon senses in the underworld, or whatever the fuck. 

He took the bowl with him to the living room, and picked up the water bowl, which, like the food bowl, still had water in it. A little of it spilled down his arm. He sighed, and carried both back to the kitchen. Jaspers was sat on the sofa, and looked up as he walked past, then apparently noticed what was going on and jumped up, following Dave. Dave almost kicked him by accident twice on his way there. He shut the door so the cat couldn’t get in. Jaspers meowed and scratched at the door. 

Dave ignored him. 

He poured the leftover water down the drain, rinsed the bowl out, then filled it up again. He put the bowl down. He could hear the printer whirring in the living room. They only had one printer, because too many would be ‘a frivolous expense’. Said the person with the fanciest cat toys money could buy. They managed fine with only one printer though. It wasn’t like they often needed to print things at the same time. They could always wait. Right now, Rose was probably printing out directions. 

To the cemetery. 

So they could see if any child parents were wandering around. 

Dave grabbed the cup they used to measure out the cat food. They kept it separate from the other cups. It had a little hook they kept it on, a small slightly rusted metal hook. He opened the bag, filled the cup, then poured it into the bowl. He went to fill the cup again, but hesitated. Did Jaspers need one and a half cups of food? Or two? He filled the cup three fourths full. Rose normally did this shit. Jaspers could have it wrong one day. He poured the contents of the cup into the bowl. 

Rose knocked on the door, but came in without him giving any sort of response, shutting the door behind her quickly so Jaspers couldn’t come in and get the food. They’d once let him in while they were making it, and he’d jumped up onto the counter and started trying to eat it straight out of the bag. Never again. 

Rose was fully dressed, in a thick coat and boots and a scarf. In her hand, she held a sheet of paper. It looked like directions, as he’d thought it would. Both of their parents were buried in the same cemetery. They had been there only once, for their mom’s funeral. That was it. They didn’t even go to Bro’s. As far as they knew, no one had. They didn’t even know where exactly he was buried, they hadn’t bothered to find out. Dave didn’t even know how he had died, just that he had. Rose knew though. She’d asked him if he wanted to know. He’d said he hadn’t. She hadn’t told him. 

Rose got the stepladder out from under the sink, and set it up. She climbed it and opened the cupboard, then asked Dave to pass her the food. He did. She put it away. She got down and put the ladder back under the sink. She asked Dave if he was ok. He shrugged. She asked if he wanted her to open the door for him. He picked up the bowls and nodded. She opened the door.

Jaspers followed them as they went to put the food down, circling around Dave’s feet, like a reverse vulture. He almost tripped, but Rose steadied him with a hand on his arm. He put the bowl of food down, and Jaspers started eating it immediately. He carried on into the living room to put the bowl of water in its regular place. Rose stayed in the hall. He stopped for a second. 

He rubbed his face and sighed. 

The whole situation was surreal. Everything that had happened in the past few days. 

Rose had used demon energies to revive her cat. 

Sure, okay, why not? 

They had summoned a demon. 

Of course they had. 

Time had stopped existing briefly. 

That was normal, right? 

They had summoned yet another demon, which Rose had hit on, and then that demon had made space glitch the fuck out. 

Naturally. And now? 

Now their friends’ grandparents had come back from the dead as children, and so had their parents, so they were going to drive to a cemetery in the middle of the fucking night to pick them up. 

This was fine. Just fine. Perfectly okay. Dave could deal with this. 

He was fine. 

He rubbed his face again, then went to join Rose in the hallway. She was holding his shoes, and handed them to him. He put them on. She told him to get a coat because it was cold, so he did, and a scarf as well. She looked him over and nodded. 

She grabbed the car and house keys from the bowl on the windowsill they were kept in. They went outside, and got into Dave’s car, Rose in the drive seat. They strapped themselves in. Rose started the car up. Dave pulled his legs up to his chest. He picked at the tassels on his scarf. Rose swore loudly as she saw that the windscreen was frosted over. Dave flinched at the sound. She winced and apologised. He shrugged. She asked Dave to pass her the scraper from the glovebox. He did. There were also glasses cases in there, and cds. He thought about putting music on, but decided not to. Rose got out and scraped the windows. Dave stared vacantly out of the window and though long and hard about nothing. Nothing at all. Not about the people they were about to see. At all. Any thoughts of that were crushed swiftly and violently. No, not crushed violently. Swept away. He’s got a big old thought broom, and any possible trauma that pops it's ugly head up will be swept under the rug immediately.

This month’s amateur armchair therapy mind un-fucking bonanza was going to be spectacular. Mind-blowing. World-breaking. Earthshattering. Rose got back in the car.

They drove in silence. The roads were clear. They made three wrong turns. They may have been speeding slightly, but nobody was there to prove it. They reached the cemetery quickly. Rose pulled up outside. She turned the car off. Neither of them moved. 

Rose said he didn’t have to go see them.

Dave said he did. 

Rose said it was his choice.

Dave said he was doing it.

Rose said ok.

They got out of the car. Rose walked around to his side. She offered him her hand. He took it. They walked in through the gate.

It was a quiet night, but there were birds chirping in the trees, winds blowing through the leaves (and trying to steal their scarves), cars screaming along in the background. No one was there. That might be normal for this cemetery, but Dave wouldn’t know. 

They walked past many graves, which all looked both very different, yet the same. There were many elaborate grave markers and tombstones; some were small, some were tall, some were shaped like angels. Some had pretty pictures and inscriptions, some were plain with one or two lines on them. Some were stone, some were marble, some were metal. Some had flowers, some had stuffed animals, some had nothing. Some were old and worn down, mostly grown over. Some were new and shiny. Normally, Dave would have found this interesting and taken a shit ton of photos. Today, they just seemed like a million different shades of dead.

A small noise made them stop dead. A child’s sob.

So it was real. Dave felt his heat beat faster. He could hear the blood coursing through his ears, like his own personal monotonous soundtrack. He was crushing Rose’s hand. He eased up, and she squeezed it gently.

She said he could go back to the car.

He shook his head. He felt like he was going to throw up. He swallowed it down.

They could see them.

Holy shit.

They were clothed, thank fuck. In the clothes that they were buried in, probably. Or not? They seemed to fit, even though they weren’t children’s clothes. But they were children.

Rose tugged Dave forward gently, and they started walking towards them. 

They were sat on the floor next to one of the graves. A plain one. Probably his. His. He was sat there. He looked the same as ever. But no, he didn’t.

Dave looked at the girl instead. 

She looked just like Mom. Or, she did from what Dave had seen in photos. He hadn’t really known her. And there weren’t that many photos. So she could share only the slightest resemblance to her for all Dave knew, but from the look on Rose’s face she looked as much like her as the boy looked like Him.

Her skin was dark, like Rose’s, and her hair was fair. She was wearing a dress that looked too mature for her, not a cutesy child’s dress. She was the one that was crying. 

He, the boy, was holding her. 

Dave felt tension in his arm, and realised that he had stopped walking, and Rose hadn’t. She turned, looked at him. She let go. She approached them. Dave leant on the nearest tombstone. 

They looked up, the girl’s eyes red rimmed with pink irises, the boy’s the same sharp pointing orange. 

Dave turned and threw up. 

He couldn’t do this, he couldn’t do this. His throat burned, his hands shook, he knew he was hyperventilating. Memories came into his head unbidden, and his wonderful ‘sweep it all under the rug’ broom vaporised in his hands.

He clenched his fists as they came, and when they passed (they didn’t really pass, just sank further away, had less effect. They were still definitely there) he stood up. He wiped his mouth on the his sleeve. He took a step towards them, focussing his gaze on the back of Rose’s head. He could do this.

He. Could. Do. This.

(he didn’t really have a choice, did he?) (he stifled that thought)

He reached them, and knelt down next to Rose. She placed her hand on his back. He was speaking.

“…have no idea who we are or how we got here? Can you help us, please?”


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is the longest chapter in this fic so far. I hope you guys enjoy it, comments are appreciated!

They were waiting in the car. 

The three of them. 

Rose, Roxy and Him. Bro. No, Dirk. That was his name. 

A few minutes ago, they had spoken. Rose had said that she and Dave were the….kids’s older siblings, and that they’d been going to visit their mom’s grave, but they had gotten separated and they must have had an accident. The two didn’t look immediately convinced, but after a while they apparently bought it. There must have been enough physical resemblance for them to know they were related. 

He…Dirk had asked about their clothes. Rose had said that she wasn’t one to judge their fashion choices. Dave hadn’t been able to look at him for more than a few seconds at a time, so he mostly focused on Roxy. They didn’t even remember their names. They had ended up wanting to go home. Rose had gotten up, brushed the dirt from her knees, and helped the children to their feet. She had offered Dave a hand up, but he had refused. He’d said he wanted to see the graves a little longer, and Rose had nodded. They’d gone to wait in the car.

Dave was starting to get cold. Sitting on the ground outside in the middle of the night in fall wasn’t exactly the kind of idea that was going to win Nobel prizes for how fucking stellar they were. The days were warm enough, but the nights could be as harsh as the strictest history teacher around, the one that yelled at you for even the slightest bit of noise and expected you to get all of her homework done first. That one.

Dave considered joining them in the car. Sitting there, with him. It wasn’t really him, he could tell that much from the short time he’d spent with him. He had none of the memories, didn’t act the same, was much smaller and softer. Like a puppet version of him. 

That thought made Dave’s stomach turn again. If he hadn’t already thrown up his dinner, he would have. The worst thing was that he was the same person. It was Him in the most literal sense of the word, about as fucking literal as it was possible to be. And it shouldn’t even be possible. Dave had thought this it was over. He was dead and buried, and while the memories and built in responses still lingered, it couldn’t have gotten any fucking worse, could it? But apparently, it could. Because his life couldn’t be easy, not once. The universe give Dave a fucking break? Yeah right. Dave wondered why it couldn’t just drop a meteor the size of the planet Jupiter on his head instead. 

They shouldn’t have summoned the demon. 

Dave got up, brushed the mud off of his ass, and started looking for an appropriate piece of rock. If that dude had caused this, he could fucking fix it. Right now. Dave kicked over a white stone, then bent and picked it up. He rubbed it against his hand, and a white residue was left behind. Chalk. Why there was chalk there he had no idea, and he didn’t really give a shit either. For all he knew or cared the whole area was made of chalk. 

He then tried to kick the gravestone over. His gravestone. It wasn’t doing anything useful anymore anyway. The attempt to kick it over failed, mainly because it was a very solid piece of rock that was slightly buried in the ground. Dave rubbed his foot, then threw himself bodily at the gravestone, and it went down with him. 

“Jesus fucking Christ!” 

Unsurprisingly, colliding at full speed with a lump of rock hurt like a motherfucker, and Dave thought that he had grazed his whole body, but he wasn’t going to let that stop him. He had dealt with far, far worse. 

Dave grabbed the metaphorical broom again and cleared that thought away.

The stone had taken the landing better than Dave had, and was perfectly intact. Good. It had the side with the very sparse words detailing Dirk Strider’s life on facing down, the back of it pointing upwards, so that Dave had a clear surface to draw on. 

Praying to all of the gods he knew (even Rose’s tentacle gods) that his art skills wouldn’t fail him now, he drew as perfect a circle as he could manage while his hands were shaking like the thinnest and most delicate of dead leaves clinging tightly onto the tree branch in a hurricane. Which is to say, the circle was shit but it would work. Probably. It had better work, he didn’t want to fuck around doing it all over again. 

He stood up and took his keys out of his pocket, unhooking the demon ring from the loop. He chucked it into the centre of the circle, and the noise it made as it collided was loud in the quiet. Everywhere around him was silent as the grave. He snorted at his own terrible pun and shoved the keys back in his pocket. 

He tried to remember how to set up the circle properly, but then remembered that setting it up properly also required crystals, candles and incense. He had none of those things, and also no time, so he was just going to have to fucking wing it and hoped the asshole showed his ugly face. 

Dave closed his eyes and recited from memory. “I call upon the guardians of the four watch towers to watch over me and protect me in this ritual. May you grant me wisdom, creativity, strength and courage. I call upon the god and goddess and ask for them to be present in this circle and guide me from harm.” He then crossed his arms. “I also call upon Karkat Vantas, Knight of Blood, The One Who Protects Families and ask him to get his fucking ass in this circle right now.”

It didn’t take long at all for the crab keyring to start moving. It turned into a pool of liquid that still looked too much like blood for Dave’s comfort. The blood then began to transform into the scowling demon, and just as he finished forming and opened his fucking mouth, probably to harp on about how superior he was in ridiculous fashion, Dave punched him in the jaw.

Punching a demon in the face didn’t hurt as much as slamming into a hunk of rock did, but it sure as hell wasn’t a joyful experience that Dave would be inclined to repeat on a regular or even semi-regular basis. Though when the bastard recovered from the impact and didn’t even have the fucking decency to look at all injured, Dave was inclined to throw that thought out of the window and hit him again.

Karkat looked furious. He probably didn’t appreciate being summoned from a hell dimension just to feel the sweet caress of Dave’s knuckles colliding against his teeth as fast and as hard as a male pornstar who has no sympathy for his co-star in a cheap adult film. Dave wasn’t feeling particularly sympathetic himself.

“What the ass blistering fuck was that for?”

“Oh, like you don’t already know. Turn them the fuck back.”

Karkat rubbed at his jaw, and frowned. The fucker genuinely seemed to have no idea what he was here for. Bastard. 

After a few seconds of increasingly uncomfortable almost eye-contact, the demon seemed to get it. Dave expected him to laugh like the prick he was, but he didn’t.

“Oh. Who was it?”

Who was it?! Dave almost started laughing himself, what kind of game was this fucker playing here? The look on his face was too concerned for Dave’s comfort. He was supposed to be an asshole, not to look like he gave a shit. 

“Oh, you know, just mine and Rose’s parents. And Jade and John’s grandparents.” Dave paused to get his breathing under control, because it had started to get a little fast there. 

“Are they ever going to turn back?”

Karkat sat down on the gravestone, and crossed his legs. It was more that slightly surreal, a demon summoned in the middle of the night in a cemetery, sitting criss-cross apple sauce on a knocked over tombstone. Rose would find it very aesthetically pleasing in her own way, if she didn’t murder him for doing something this reckless. He really hoped that she stayed in the car for a while.

“You know you guys aren’t the first bunch of fucking clueless idiots to be so incapable of doing anything other than fondling your own bulges that you dragged me down to this fucking hellhole.”

There he was, the dickhead that Dave had hoped to see. A little late, and Dave’s anger had almost burnt itself out, but better late than never, he guessed. Although, he didn’t actually seem all that angry. At least, not at Dave. 

“This kinda bullshit happened to the humans that share blood with those dumb fucks, but they went and fucking got themselves killed later, so the issue resolved itself. I can do fuck all about it.”

Dave felt his knees weaken under him, so he sat down and hoped it looked completely intentional. If not, then at least only Karkat saw him, and really, what was he going to do, tell a bunch of all powerful beings in another dimension that a human almost collapsed in front of him? He didn’t flatter himself to think it would be the highlight of their day. Although, what did he know, some people found his pain mighty amusing. Including someone he now had to live with. Again. 

“So probably not. Well shit, guess I’m just gonna have to raise my fucking bro and pretend that I’m not a fucking mess due to him, gotta keep a tight lid on that shit, locked down like motherfucking Fort Knox up in here, you try to break in and take that shit but the security here is the best there is, top class Navy Seals all up in this bitch.”

Dave was aware that he was running his mouth, and not actually keeping a lid on it, but again, seriously, what was Karkat going to do? Make it worse? It couldn’t get much worse at this point. 

Dave glanced over at the demon, who was leaning forwards to try to look at Dave’s face.

“Dave what the fuck are you talking about? Just shut your protein chute for ten seconds.”

What the fuck was up with these demons and their fucking ridiculous made up words for things? Although, Kanaya hadn’t used that many of them, that Dave could remember, so maybe it was just Karkat’s way of distancing himself even further from the humans. He kept talking.

“Yes, you are probably going to have that little monkey clambering around your shit for the rest of however fucking long humans live, but you could probably talk to Feferi and she might be able to turn them back.”

Dave froze but naturally, while his brain was trying to catch up, his mouth ran away from him.

“Wait, one of you is called Fe-fairy? You guys are a bunch of super powerful demons, and one of you is called Fe-fairy? That is the most fucking ironic thing I have ever heard.”

Karkat didn’t even have the decency to pretend to be annoyed.

“It’s Feferi you douchesack. Everyone knows fairies aren’t real. And that’s beside the fucking point.”

That just sounds like Dave’s life, dancing around the point like a fencer trying not to get hit by a flimsy sword.

“Do you want her to turn them back?”

Dave tugged at his scarf, pulling it tight around his throat.

“No. Yes. Maybe, I don’t fucking know, I want this rank bullshit to have never have happened!”

Dave threw his hands in the air. Karkat looked at him passively, not saying anything, not doing anything to stop Dave, so he took that as his cue to keep running his mouth. 

“This shit stinks so badly that all the paint in the house has long divorced the walls they once clung to like limpets clinging to their mothership because they don’t want to move out and grow up. It stinks so fuckin’ bad that up in high heaven if there is a fucking god, he's got a whiff of it and told an angel to turn on the fucking AC to try and waft it out, and all of your other friends stuck in whatever hell dimension you come from, even they have sniffed it, it has reached their weird demon nostrils and caused them to throw up from nausea. They are puking all over their asses in the goddamned underworld because I’ve gotta raise someone I never wanted t’see again, and he doesn’t even know why I'll have to look him in the face and try not to remember getting cut to fucking shreds day in and day out. This. Is. Bullshit.”

While Dave was talking, Karkat’s face had slowly morphed from one that was bordering on concern to full blown giving a shit, he had pulled out all the stops here, the fucking asshole. 

“Your human Lusus cut you to shreds?”

Well fuck Dave if he wasn’t going to use that as an excuse to keep talking. It wasn’t like he had anything better to do.

“He wasn’t a fucking good parent, alright? Fuckin’ beat me up all day and night whenever he wanted to, t’try and toughen me up for the real world or some such bullshit that stunk  
about twice as much as the shit I said before. Double the shit. I was also fucking starving all the goddamned time because all he kept in the fridge was stupid shitty swords, as another way to “prepare me”. Yeah, prepare me like fuckin’ vegetables to go into a motherfucking soup, cut up like a getaway driver cuts up the roads while tryin’ ta avoid getting caught by the police because y’all’re never gonna catch us now you fuckers, move out of the fucking way as we zigzag across the lanes like a drunk bumblebee.”

Dave paused. Karkat was frowning at him again. Karkat frowned about as much as Rose smirked or Dave poker-faced.

“Okay, that one went really off course, but the point is, he hated my guts and I hated livin’ there like Donald Trump hates Mexicans. And that got worse after I told him that I was a dude, he went like double duty on that shit. Told me to take all of my tears and emotions and bottle those motherfuckers up and lock ‘em away, back in that metaphorical Fort Knox. Tighter than that, tighter than the skinniest of skinny jeans hugging some hipster’s plush rump. Took Rose fucking years to unzip that fucker, and shit’s still hanging onto my ankles.”

Karkat interrupted.

“I have literally no idea what you are saying. What does Rose have to do with any of this?”

Karkat had reached out to try and touch him, get him to look at him, but had stayed in the circle. What right did this dickhead have to look concerned when this was his fault?

Dave circled his hand in the air vaguely.

“She gave me somewhere to stay when I moved out, well ran away. That shitstain never looked for me, and I sure as shit didn’t want to see him again, then he up and kicked the fucking bucket, so this is the first time I’ve seen him in over a year now, and that’s all your fucking fault?”

He visibly recoiled at that, and it left a sick feeling of satisfaction in Dave’s gut.

“Hold on a second how in the name of all that is unholy is this my fault? It was your grubfisted human sister that had the ridiculous notion of summoning me cross her think pan in the first place!”

“You leave Rose out of this, you ass!”

“You’re the one that brought her up in to start off with you jerk! Ok, you know what, fine! It is my fault! And I can’t turn them back, and I can’t help you, so you may as well just  
banish me!”

“Fine!”

He did.

In a few seconds Dave was left alone in the graveyard, with only a crab keyring in a chalk circle drawn on the knocked over gravestone of his now living abusive father/older brother. Dave sighed deeply, as if breathing out air harder than normal would push his troubles away from him. 

It didn’t.

He picked up the keyring and walked towards the entrance, to where they were waiting in the car.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This isn't technically late yet. It's not thoroughly proofread though, so if you do spot anything, please tell me and I'll fix it. That being said, I hope you enjoy this chapter anyway, comments are appreciated!

Despite the chilly weather, it was warm in the car. This was because as soon as he had stepped inside, Dirk had begun complaining about the cold and asked Rose to turn the heating on, and she had obliged, turning up to the highest setting. Rose was currently tugging on her seatbelt, wondering whether or not to strap herself in. She decided not to, and instead turned the radio on, trying to fill up the silent car with noise. 

The kids were in the back of the car, not making much noise at all. Roxy had found Dave’s Nintendo 3DS under the passenger seat, and had asked if she could play on it. Upon Rose giving her permission, she had turned it on and begun playing whatever game it was that was in there. She hadn’t spoken since. Meanwhile, Dirk was looking out of the window, watching the trees bend in the wind. Rose imagined he was trying to recover memories leading up to this present moment, and judging by the frown on his face, failing spectacularly. 

Rose had tried texting Dave, but he hadn’t responded. She hoped that he was ok. He had been gone for quite a while, and she was beginning to worry. He didn’t want to be around Dirk, that much was obvious, but while that was a reasonable response, she hoped he would come and join them soon. Deciding that if he didn’t join them after ten more minutes, she began texting Jade and John. 

They had apparently also claimed to be their grandparent’s siblings, which reassured Rose for reasons she couldn’t quite place. They were apparently having some teething issues, but that was to be expected. Jane and Jake, as they were apparenlty named, were naturally wondering what had caused them to have no memories of this place or their lives whatsoever, and Jade and John had struggled to come up with a conceivable reason. Rose was herself hoping that the children didn’t realise their ‘accident’ would most likely have left them in considerable pain. Although, for all she knew, they could be in agony and not telling her. 

She turned in her chair and searched their faces for any sign of distress. Roxy appeared engrossed in her game, and Dirk was still looking out of the window, his face blank. She stared at him a little longer, trying to find the minute signals that Dave’s poker face usually had to indicate discomfort, but found none. He was frowning slightly, lost in thought, but not in pain. As she watched him, his brows raised in surprise, and he placed a finger to the window.

“Dave is on his way back.”

Rose looked at where he was pointing, and saw he was correct. His skin was so pale that is almost glowed in the dark, not that much of it was exposed. As he got closer, Rose strapped in, and told the children to do the same. 

“Hey.” Rose said, when Dave opened the door.

Dave climbed into the driver’s seat and strapped in.

“Hey.”

“You were gone a while, you feeling ok?”

Dave started up the car and refused to meet her eye. 

“Yeah, I just called someone.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah.”

He didn’t elaborate. Neither Jade or John had mentioned talking to Dave when she spoke to them, which meant that it wasn’t one of those two, and that was unusual. He had either called someone else, (highly unlikely), or he was lying. Which was the most likely case, but it made her much more uneasy. The idea that he just wouldn’t tell her what was wrong left a sick feeling in her gut.

They drove home in silence. Usually, Dave would be rambling away, but he was quiet, which was…not what she’d hoped for, but about what she had expected. She hoped he was ok. Or that he would be ok soon. Mostly, she hoped that he’d talk to her, so she could do something about it. Whatever doing something about it meant. Most likely not a lot.  
She couldn’t begin to imagine how difficult this was going to be for Dave. Her feelings towards Roxy were complicated to say the least, but Dave’s towards Dirk were very simple. Hate, fear, dread. She had no idea what to do. If Dirk regained his memories, it would spell disaster for everyone. And even if he didn’t, life will still be complicated. 

She glanced over her shoulder at them. Roxy, in a long pink dress, focused intently on her game, the screen lighting up her face. Dirk, in a black suit and tie, the streetlights flickering over his blank face. How on earth was she going to convince them that they lived together when they didn’t even have clothes for them? She might have some of her old clothes lying around for Roxy, but for Dirk? She was going to have to buy them some clothes, and think up some reason as to why they didn’t have them. She wished she could talk to Dave about it without them there. 

Perhaps she could say that after their parents’ deaths they weren’t given automatic custody of them, meaning that they’ve only just moved in, and hadn’t had the choice to get their clothes. She could order some online, in hopefully the correct sizes. Although they would take some time to get there. Dave drove past a shop that was still open despite the early hour, or perhaps it had just opened, and she realised that she was going to have to go shopping for children’s clothes in the middle of the night. That wasn’t going to look weird at all. 

They reached their house quickly, because the roads were still quiet. Dave didn’t get lost on the way back, surprisingly. He must have been paying closer attention than Rose had thought when they drove there. Or he’d looked up directions while they were waiting for him. Or perhaps the route home was simply easier to work out than the route there. You simply had to reach a point you recognised then go from there. 

Dave pulled up in the driveway, and it was still dark outside, but Rose knew that it was approaching almost sensible hours to be awake. It would still be dark for a while though. Rose unbuckled her seatbelt, and frowned as Dave made no move to remove his own, or get out of the car. She frowned at him. His lip quirked downwards and he tilted his head slightly to the side. She looked over their shoulders at the children. Right.

“Hey guys, why don’t you pop inside, Dave and I wanna sit here and talk for a bit, we’ll join you in a sec.”

Dirk unstrapped, and Roxy turned off the 3DS, then said “We don’t have keys.”

Rose reached into her pocket and took out her keys, passed them back to them, and they got out.

“We’ll just be a minute, promise.” She added before they shut the door.

She watched them walk the rest of the way up the path and unlock the door, then go inside, and when the door shut behind them she turned to Dave.

“How are you doing?”

He sighed deeply and rested his head on the steering wheel. “Pretty shit, to be honest.”

She moved to rest a hand on his knee, but decided against it and played with her seatbelt instead. 

“Anything I can do to help?”

“Don’t think so, but I’ll be sure to tell you if anything comes up.”

“Alright. Who did you call?”

If at all possible, he seemed to avoid her gaze even harder at this point, and the feeling in her gut got worse.

“I’ll tell you later.”

“Ok. We’ve got to look after them until…well until whatever is going to happen happens and we can find out what else to do. I really don’t know.”

Dave didn’t look up. “I know.”

“They’re going to wonder why we don’t have any of their stuff, so I had an idea.”

“Shoot.”

Rose shot. She explained to him her plan, the ideas that had been swimming in her head since Jade had called them, and he nodded and responded appropriately. 

“Ok. So how about I distract them while you set up their rooms?”

He sighed again, quieter this time, but still audible. This time it sounded relieved, though Rose may have been projecting. He sat up properly and looked in her direction.

“Sounds good.”

They both nodded. Dave unstrapped, and they got out of the car. Dave let them in, and didn’t head to the living room at all, going straight upstairs to get started. Rose took her shoes off by the door and went into the living room.

The two kids were chilling on the sofa, looking fairly relaxed for people with no memories. Perhaps Roxy did recognise the place to some degree, or maybe she even recognised Rose. It was also possible that they were just very trusting, though that didn’t sound much like either of their guardians.

They looked at her when she walked in, putting their conversation to an immediate halt.

“Hi. Dave is just setting up your rooms.”

Roxy frowned.

“Setting up our rooms? I thought you said we lived here.”

“You do live here, now. You used to live with our parents, who were…pretty bad people, so the state got custody over you. We only just won it back. We haven’t really had time to get your stuff.”

Dirk put a hand on his hip. How he did so while still on a sofa, and have it retain the integrity of the motion, Rose had no idea, but he managed anyway.

“Why should we trust you?”

“Dirk!”

“What? I’m just saying, we have no memories, and this random couple come and whisks us away to this house, saying we’re related but they have no rooms for us, and we should just believe them?”

Rose shifted slightly, but didn’t get a chance to say anything.

“They look just like us! Use your eyes, dork!”

Dirk rolled said eyes. “Ok, sure they may be related to us, but how do we know that they’re nice?”

Roxy crossed her arms. “Wouldn’t they have done something terrible to us by now if they weren’t nice?”

“What, like wipe our memories and kidnap us?”

“Dirk!”

“What?”

“Excuse me?” They both looked over at her, startled by the interruption. They settled back down in their seats, and it was quiet, except for the sounds of Dave moving boxes around upstairs.

“Look, I know you have no reason to trust us. You have no memories, and then got picked up by some people in a graveyard who happen to look somewhat like you. For all you know, Dave could be preparing a gruesome death for you upstairs right now, but I promise you he isn’t. I’m afraid that you don’t really have any choice but to trust us. We don’t have much in the way of proof, our parents kept most of the photos of us together, before they died, but I think I may have a picture of Roxy somewhere. “

Please, gods, let it be where she thinks it is. She opened a nearby cabinet drawer and (yes, thank you!) pulled out a picture of a very young Roxy. She must be around 6 years old in the photo, Rose isn’t even sure why she has it. She just likes the picture. She hands it over to Roxy to inspect, and the girl smiles triumphantly, and passes it to Dirk. In one slight movement, the fight seems to fall out of him. He gives it back to her, and she puts it back in the drawer.

“Alright. So, which of you wants to help me with dinner?”

They both helped her, in the end. Dirk helped her measure out ingredients, and Roxy cut up vegetables, and while they were waiting for the oven, Rose left them to do the washing up and quickly popped upstairs to check on Dave. One of the rooms was ready, the other one half way there. He explained that he had to move a lot of junk into yet another spare room, and it was taking some doing and wreaking havoc on her sorting system, but it was a necessary sacrifice. He told her to go back downstairs, and she did, and then shooed the kids to dish up dinner.

Dave came down and ate with them, and the conversation over dinner was stilted and awkward, despite any efforts made by any parties to lessen that. They spoke of their classes, told the children what they study, about their friends, and Rose privately wondered how John and Jade were coping with their own situation. Possibly much better. Probably. 

After dinner, Dave finished clearing the rooms, and the children said they were getting tired. They lent them some oversize t-shirts, said they’d get their clothes in the morning, and they went up to bed.

Rose went into the kitchen and poured herself and Dave two cups of ice cold water. She passed him one, and he took it and lent against the counter. She pulled herself up onto the one opposite, and rested her feet beside him. 

“So.” She asked.

He tapped the glass.

“So.” He repeated. 

“Who did you call?”

He didn’t reply automatically, so she sipped from her glass of water. But then, while her mouth was full, he replied.

“I summoned Karkat.”

She spat the water out, then choked for a few seconds. He moved to help her, but she raised a hand to stop him, and she recovered a few seconds later. Spit and water still dripping from her lips, she barely contained her shout (mainly due to remembering a split second before she opened her mouth that the children were upstairs).

“You did what?!”


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No proofreading, we post in the middle of the might like the useless disasters we are. Comments are appreciated, as always. I promise something more interesting will happen in the next chapter.

“I summoned Karkat. I thought he might be able to put them back. He can’t.”

Rose put her glass down and pinched the bridge of her nose.

“So let me get this straight. You summoned a demon by yourself, in a graveyard, with no protection, and very little experience and didn’t tell anyone what you were doing.”

It wasn’t a question, so she didn’t make it sound like one.

Dave tapped his glass again. Made a little tune. 

“I also maybe sorta punched him in the face.”

Rose stared at him. Dave didn’t look at her. She could feel her mouth hang open, and it took her a few seconds to shut it and remember how to speak.

“You summoned a demon who you know has the power to raise the dead and you punched him in the face!?”

“…yes. That is a thing that I did. It didn’t sound that bad at the time.”

Of course it didn’t. Ideas rarely seemed as bad as they were. Rose was a living example of that. Hell, Roxy and Dirk were a very literal living example of that. And at least Dave’s idea didn’t have such terrible consequences. They most likely needed to summon Karkat anyway, to stop more of their relatives from re-joining the land of the living. Not that they had many they were aware of. It would be a huge issue for Jade and John though, they came from a huge family. 

Rose sighed and sat back on the counter properly, picked up her drink again and wiped her mouth with her sleeve.

“At least you’re safe. Tell me what happened.”

Dave turned to her, and his eyebrows raised slightly, like he was surprised by her response, and she hated that.

He gave her a very brief summary of their conversation, which she felt was skipping over large parts, but she didn’t mind. She wasn’t going to ask him to tell her everything he told everyone else, the mere idea was terrifying, that lack of privacy. He told her the important things, and that was enough.

When he was finished, Rose drunk what was left of her drink. So, they might be able to…to what exactly? Rose wasn’t sure she wanted to find out. Dave said ‘put them back’ but Rose wasn’t sure if it would be that simple. She really didn’t want to think about it.

“So. We know that there is an order to this. Karkat is first, Feferi is last. If you summon anyone too soon, it resets, and if you don’t summon anyone within a 12-hour time limit, their power starts leaking into this world. Perhaps because they are trying to enter this world themselves, I don’t know. Karkat has powers that effect our relatives, bringing them to life and potentially other things. Kanaya warps space. Feferi most likely deals with life. Another unknown demon deals with time. This matches up with what it says in the grimoire. The next demon we need to summon now, so that time doesn’t go wrong, is the time demon, whichever one that is.”

She had slid off the counter and begun pacing the kitchen while she spoke, and Dave’s eyes followed her as she passed in front of him. 

“So, all we have to do is check to see which one is the time demon, set up the circle, and then we’re good to go. Although, you managed to summon Karkat without the proper supplies.”

Dave shrugged. “We’d already summoned him before, and I used the same keyring. Maybe it was loaded up with his shitty demon essence or something, fuck if I know.”

“Interesting. It’ll probably be safer to stick with our current method for the time being, although that is something to think about.”

Rose had a lot of things to think about, so she added it to the list and carried on. She put her glass in the sink, and gestured to Dave for his. 

“If we call John and Jade now, we can arrange to meet up here tomorrow before classes, sort out a schedule for looking after the kids, and summon the demon, then summon the next one in the evening when we get back home, rinse and repeat as long as necessary.”

Dave handed her the glass.

“Sounds like a plan. One of us call them, the other goes on a midnight clothes shopping run?”

Rose placed the glass in the sink.

“I call dibs on clothing run, unless you really wanna switch.”

Dave made a humming noise. “Yeah, ok, I’d probably buy them the worst clothes in the shop, can’t do that to them.”

Rose laughed. “No, we can’t. By the way, when you talk to Jade, ask her to bring one of the copies of the grimoire with her, I sent my only copy to her and deleted it. I didn’t want to do something stupid again.”

In truth, she had hoped that it would make Jade less annoyed. Not that she was annoyed, necessarily, but she certainly wasn’t impressed. She had disappointed her, and it was a mistake she wanted to rectify. Not really because she thought it would bring about terrible things, but because she’d done this before, and thought she was better than this. She wanted to be better than this. She was trying to be. 

“Yeah sure, I’ll ask her. You really deleted it?”

“Yes.”

They were just standing in the kitchen now, not doing anything productive. They should probably get moving. Rose started moving towards the door, opened it, and made a   
swooping bow. Dave left the room with her. 

“You put a lot of work into that.”

Rose waved a hand in what she hoped appeared a casual manner. It most likely seemed stilted. Dave was going to see through it either way. It was more of a habit than anything else.

“Most of the actual work was done on paper anyway, and Jade still has those.”

“Alright, I’m gonna call them, you get your ass out of here.”

Rose goes to grab her shoes, and then pauses. No point in guessing when she could just ask them. They were probably asleep but it was worth a shot.

She changed direction and headed to their rooms. Roxy’s was closer, and she knocked softly. The girl didn’t answer, so she knocked a little louder. When that also had no response, with no sound coming from behind the door at all, she opened it, so see the girl was fast asleep in bed.

Dirk’s door was slightly ajar, so she could see that he was sitting up in bed, clearly awake. He was also looking at the door, making knocking redundant. She knocked anyway. 

“Hi.”

“Hey. Can I come in?”

Dirk shrugged. “Sure.”

Rose came in and leaned against the dresser. 

“So, I was planning on popping out and getting some clothes for you guys, so you have something to wear in the morning. Do you happen to have any preferences?”

The boy frowned. “You’re going shopping now?”

“No time like the present.”

“That doesn’t-” he cut himself off with a yawn. “…that doesn’t seem like a good idea.”

Rose smiled.

“I think you should go to sleep. I’m going to go get you some clothes, then go to sleep myself. Any type of clothes you want?”

He thought about it for a bit. Rose stopped leaning on the dresser, because it was digging into her arm.

“Nothing really. Black clothes. Jeans. Can you get me some sunglasses?”

“Of course.”

Dirk nodded, and lay down.

“Good night. Sorry for implying you were a murderer.”

That surprised a laugh out of her.

“Good night. It’s ok, we forgive you.”

Rose left and made sure to close the door behind her. She made her way back to the living room, walking extra quietly past the sleeping girl’s room. Not that she needed to, Roxy   
had slept through her knocking loudly on the door, but she still found her steps lightening despite herself. 

Dave was sat on the sofa, deep in conversation with whichever sibling was on the phone to him. She caught his eye, and he gave her a half wave of his hand. She pointed towards the front door. He gave her a thumbs-up. 

As she put her coat and shoes on, she tried not to listen to the conversation they were having in the other room. She didn’t try too hard. She wrapped a scarf around her neck as she heard Dave ask them how they were doing. She grabbed the keys, and left the house.

It was a short drive to the store, and she soon filled her shopping cart with a not-quite-ridiculous-but-more-than-was-probably-necessary amount of children’s clothing. Larger than she thought they would need, because they would rather have clothes too big than too small if they didn’t fit. She nearly walked past the sunglasses, but then realised her mistake and went back. 

There were many, many kinds, more than she could hope to pick through herself, so she grabbed the pair that looked the most like Dave’s and threw them in the cart.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, I'm sorry about the unexpected break there, life happened and i couldn't write for a while, but this fic hasn't been abandoned and i do plan to keep writing it, so as always, comments are appreciated and I hope you like it! If you want to talk to me on tumblr (where i go by the same name) then feel free! I'd love to chat!

Rose got back from shopping an hour after she left. In that time, Dave had begun some homework for class, but really wasn’t making much progress with it. He abandoned it completely when he heard her unlock the door, and he got up to help her with the bags. There weren’t a lot of clothes, but enough that she would have had difficulty carrying them to their rooms herself. He took them off of her, and held onto them while she took of her shoes and coat. 

“We should put these in their rooms, then get some sleep. We have a demon to summon in the morning, and then classes.”

“Right.”

Dave only had classes in the afternoon on Fridays, but he got her point. He looked in the bags, trying to work out which bags were for which kid. Rose pointed to the two in his left hand.

“Those two are Dirk’s. The rest are Roxy’s.”

He nodded, and handed her the ones for Dirk, then took the others to Roxy’s room. He hesitated outside it, unsure if he should go in, or knock, and Rose noticed when she walked past him.

“She was asleep before I left, just go in and leave them in the wardrobe.”

He nodded. Rose continued past him, and knocked on Dirk’s door, and then went in. He couldn’t tell if there had been a reply or not. Dave sighed to himself and opened the door.  
Roxy was in fact asleep, peacefully curled up in her bed. The bed was far too large for her, it was a double bed, meant for guests, but it would have to do. For however long. What if they just disappeared overnight, and they’d bought these clothes for nothing? No, Karkat had said that they were stuck with them. Or implied. Whatever. He’d actually given the impression that he had about as much of an idea of what was going on as they did, which was really fucking helpful. 

He sighed again and put the bags of clothes in the wardrobe. He hoped that she would think to look in there. Maybe he should leave a note? Or he could tell her when she woke up. That would work. Besides, to leave a note, he’d have to go find a pen and paper and he was not about that life this early in the morning. 

He looked at her one last time before he left the room. This was something he was going to have to get used to. Having two more people in the house. Two people who are their parents, who have no memories and are in fact children. You know, the normal kind of ups and downs of adult life. 

He left the room and shut the door quietly. Rose was in the hallway, and she looked at him, yawned, shrugged and went towards her own room. 

“Night Dave.”

“Night Rose.”

He went to his own room, stripped down to his underwear and pulled on a t-shirt he slept in, put his phone on charge, lay down in bed and tried to sleep. A couple hours of his brain screaming at him later, he finally dozed off.

 

The next morning, he almost forgot what had happened. He woke up, turned off the alarm on his phone, went to the living room. Rose wasn’t there, so he went into the kitchen to grab some breakfast.

That’s where the normality stopped. 

Standing on one of the kitchen counters, trying to get a glass out of one of the cupboards, was Dirk, already fully dressed in the clothes Rose had bought him. He was balanced precariously on the edge, and as Dave watched him, he leant too far backwards and would have fallen off, if Dave hadn’t rushed forwards and grabbed him. 

“Woah there, little man, be a bit more careful, we don’t want you having an accident.”

Dave was still holding him, but Dirk made a noise of protest in his arms, so he put the boy down on the floor. 

“I was fine.”

“You nearly fell.”

Dirk pouted, “I would have been fine.”

“Bullshit. Now let me get a glass for you. Were you after any in particular?”

Dirk glared, but shook his head. Dave shifted slightly under his gaze. The dude was ten, he should not be able to glare like that. Dave climbed up onto the counter himself, and expertly avoided falling off or hitting himself in the face, and got out a glass.

“How come you can stand on the counter, but I can’t?”

Dave shut the cupboard. “Because, I’m a grown ass adult and know how to open the door without falling off and cracking my skull open on the kitchen floor.”

He hopped down. 

“I didn’t crack my skull open.” Dirk protested, as Dave offered him the glass.

“No, you didn’t because I caught you. If I hadn’t been there, you would have hurt yourself and then we’d either have to fix you up ourselves, or pay for a hospital visit, and we don’t want that.”

Dirk took the glass and went to fill it with water. He couldn’t quite reach the tap, so he took a step back and frowned. 

“There’s a stepladder right there.” Dave pointed, and Dirk went and grabbed it.

“Try using that next time instead of attempting dangerous as fuck gymnastics at…” Dave checked the time on his phone, “7 in the morning.”

Dirk filled his glass instead of replying. Dave didn’t have anything else to say either, and the resulting silence put him on edge. Dave couldn’t stand silence, because whenever bro was silent, it meant he was planning something, and that something normally ended up with Dave having to avoid being turned into a human fucking shish kebab. And while this wasn’t bro, it also was. And while he wasn’t going to hurt him, he also had no proof of that. And it was freaking Dave out. A lot. He tapped his foot on the floor, twitching. He could go into another room, get away from him. But then he wouldn’t be able to see him. And he could plan something. Or he could hurt himself. Because this was bro. But this was also a 10 yr old boy who almost fell off a counter trying to get a drink. 

“Dave?”

Dave wouldn’t admit to flinching if you asked him, but Dirk saw it happen, so he didn’t need to ask. He swallowed, and looked at the kid. He was standing on the top of the ladder, glass full, sipping from it.

“Yeah kiddo?”

“You keep acting weird. Do you hate me?”

God this kid was fucking perceptive. One day, one fucking day in his presence, not even that much, and he already knew something was off. But then again, he did throw up upon seeing them. And avoid him. And flinch when he spoke. And a shit ton of other things he wasn’t thinking of right now because how the fuck do you answer a question like that? 

Dirk was still looking at him, and Dave couldn’t deal with it, so he got a bowl out of the cupboard and began making himself some cereal. 

“I don’t hate you. I’m never going to hate you kid.” 

He went to the fridge and got the milk out, and felt his skin burn where Dirk was watching him, expecting him to keep talking. He did. 

“But, our father was a bad person. You know, we had to get custody of you from him, because he was bad.”

Dave put the milk and bowl down on the counter. He opened another cupboard and got out the cereal.

“He was a dick to me in particular. He hurt me really badly.” 

Dave didn’t say that he cut him with a sword on a regular basis, forced him to fight him on a rooftop, starved him, and recorded him all the time. Or any of the other things he did.

Because he’d already told Karkat this, and going over it again this soon would wear him out.

Because that isn’t something a kid needs to hear. 

Because he was afraid that hearing the specifics would make him remember. 

Because Dirk was still staring at him, and his gaze didn’t change.

Dave forced himself to look at Dirk, really look at him, not just see his eyes and think of him. He looks at his face, how round it was, how soft. A child’s face. Because he was a child. 

“And sometimes, when I look at you, I remember him. And right now, because of everything that is going on, it’s happening more often. And you don’t deserve that, and I should know you’re not him, but it still bothers me sometimes.”

Dirk didn’t move for a second, and Dave could feel his insides hurting. It was like they’d all decided to commit a fucking mutiny and betray him, gotta tie themselves up, have a dance party, and make him sick. And then Dirk nodded slowly and it make them pull even tighter. 

“I’m sorry.”

Dave blinked. Dirk looked up at him, and he looked actually sad. 

“No, kid, you don’t have to apologise, it’s not your fault.”

Except it was. This literally was the person who hurt him, and Dave could feel his head splitting in two, trying to cope with the divide. On one hand, it was him, but on the other hand it wasn’t. But for all he knew, at any second, he could remember what happened. Or change back. 

But for now? For now, he was a kid. And he didn’t know anything. So Dave was going to treat him like one. 

Dave looked away from Dirk, finished making the cereal and handed to bowl to Dirk. 

“Here. Go into the dining room, have some breakfast. I’ll join you in a sec.”

Dirk took the bowl, and after staring at him for a moment longer, he left the room.

Dave lent against the counter, and tried to get his head together. When that didn’t work, he poured himself a glass of cold water and pressed it against his face. When that didn’t work, he drank it, put the glass down and went to see if Rose was awake yet.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for all of the nice comments and support so far, I may not be able to upload a chapter next week, but I will try anyway. I hope you enjoy this chapter, comments are, as always, really appreciated!

By the time Jade and John texted Dave, saying they were on their way, Rose and Roxy had woken up, and the four of them had had breakfast. It was then 20 minutes before they showed up, and in those 20 minutes, Roxy and Dirk had gotten bored and found one of Dave’s 3DSs again, and begun playing whatever game was in it. Either animal crossing or Zelda, he couldn’t remember which on he left in there. Mostly Roxy was playing, with Dirk watching over her shoulder. 

They had said that they were bringing Jake and Jane over, and that because Jade didn’t have lessons until the afternoon she could look after all of the kids in the morning, until Dave came home. They realised that they were going to have to keep doing this, take turns watching the children from now onwards. Not because they couldn’t take care of themselves (though they couldn’t really do that) but because they needed to make sure no one saw them. 

Though Dave had no idea how the fuck they were going to explain that. How much dodgier can you act? Hiya kids, you have no memories and we’re your legal guardians now, except please don’t check how legal that is, also you can’t go outside or talk to anyone. Ever. It was creepy and controlling in a way that made Dave feel all kinds of wrong, but it wasn’t like they could tell them the truth. 

So, they just had to find ways to keep them away from other people that didn’t make them feel trapped. Which was going to be difficult, especially with how smart they are. But they still had time. They haven’t even been here for a day yet, it’ll take them a while to get worried. 

It still made Dave uneasy, and while he watched Roxy explain to Dirk the principles of the game she was playing, he sincerely wished that he could do better for them.  
He was interrupted from his thoughts by the sound of a car pulling up to the drive. Dirk looked up and out of the window, then turned to look at Dave. 

“Who’s that?”

Oh, right. He’d forgotten to tell them they were coming over. 

“That’s our friends. Jade, John, Jake and Jane. Jade’s gonna be looking after you this morning.”

Roxy looked up from her game. Well, Dave’s game. 

“Why? Don’t we have school?"

Shiiiiiit. 

Before Dave could make something up, Rose spoke from the doorway. She must have been going to let them in so that they wouldn’t ring the doorbell.

“You’re currently between schools. You had to switch over when you moved in with us, and we’ve not quite sorted it out yet. We’re working on it.”

Roxy nodded, and seemed satisified with that answer, so Dave breathed a quiet sigh of relief. Dirk still seemed curious about who was at the door, but that was fine. Dave heard the door opening, and the familiar voices of Jade and John, and then two higher pitched and less familiar voices. Jane and Jake. 

Before Dave could go out to meet them (or Dirk for that matter, the boy had gotten out of his seat and was already moving towards the door), Rose lead the four of them into the living room. 

Jake was short, he barely reached Dave’s shoulders and Dave wasn’t exactly tall himself, but then again Jake was like 10. Still, Dirk and Roxy were taller than him. But if Jake was anything like his…grandkids? John and Jade, then he was going to have a growth spirt in his teens and end up much much taller than them. Looking at him, Dave was very strongly reminded of 10-year-old Jade, he was an almost perfect replica of her. Or, she was one of him.

This was going to get very confusing very fast. 

Jake actually seemed to be wearing some of Jade’s old clothes. Which probably wasn’t entirely weather appropriate, but that never stopped Jade, and it didn’t seem to be stopping Jake. 

It also didn’t seem to be stopping Jane, who was also in a matching pair of shorts. She was a bit paler than Jake, and a bit taller and chubbier, but otherwise much the same. She seemed to have brushed her hair this morning though, unlike basically everyone else in her family. 

Dave realised that he was probably staring at the kids like he’d never seen them before. Which, in his defense, he hadn’t but, the kids may not know that. Or they might. It depends on what Jade and John told them. Dave looked up and locked eyes with John, attempting to get cross the idea that John should fucking say something so he had some idea of what he was working with. His shades were probably hindering him, but damn if he wasn’t gonna try anyway. Come on, ten years of best friendship had to count for something, and if he didn’t get an almost telepathic connection out of it he was asking for his money back. 

Unfortunately, John didn’t seem to notice his panic. 

Fortunately, he started talking anyway.

“Morning Dave! How are you doing?”

“I’m doing great thanks. Super looking forwards to a long long day of listening to my oh so cultured classmates tell me every single possible interpretation of why the wall in the background of whatever the fuck film was yellow instead of red.”

John rolled his eyes but kept talking. 

“You complain about it but texting me mocking them is the highlight of your day. Anyway, like I said to you on the phone earlier, these are our younger siblings, Jane and Jake.”

“Your parents weren’t super inventive, where they?”

“Fuck you, Dave.”

Dave faked a gasp, bringing a hand up to his mouth for extra effect. “Language. Not in front of the kids.”

Before they could continue their conversation, Dave felt someone tugging on his sleeve. He looked down, and saw Jane holding her hand out towards him.

“Hi, I’m Jane. You must be Dave. John said you have silly glasses, but I like them.”

John’s expression of pure betrayal was priceless, and Dave had to bite his lip to stop himself from laughing. 

“Hi Jane. It’s nice to finally meet you. Did John also tell you that he bought me these glasses?”

Jane shook her head. She had a very serious expression, like Dave was telling her important information.

“He bought me them for my birthday one year because he thought it would be a funny joke, but I actually think they’re really cool, so I wear them all the time. Also, they hide my demon eyes.”

Jane frowned. 

“Demon eyes?”

Dave grinned, and lowered his shades so Jane could see his eyes. This was a joke that Dave had made before, but now that Dave had actually met a few demons it was somehow both much funnier and not funny at all. Jane’s reaction was still pretty cute.

That is, for two seconds, until Dirk walked over from where he had been talking to Jake and said “He’s not a demon, he’s an albino. That’s why his skin is so pale, unlike Rose’s.” 

“oooh.”

“I’m Dirk by the way.”

Jane shook hands with him as well. And then Dirk shook hands with John. Dave quickly glanced around the room while this was happening, and saw that Jake had walked over to Roxy and they were involved in a very quiet conversation, and back near the door Rose and Jade were talking. Dave watched as Jade’s hand motions grew more and more agitated, and Rose’s facial expression changed fractionally. Whatever she was saying, Rose was not impressed, but before he could get over there and see what the problem was, Jade finished what she was saying, and Rose’s eyebrows rose so quickly they broke the land speed record, call the books, boys, this one needs to be written down. 

“What do you mean you forgot to bring it!?”

Dave winced at the sudden volume, and everyone else in the room turned to look at the girls, but as Jade started trying to explain again, the meaning of the words hit Dave, hard and fast like a boxer slamming his fist into the punching bag that is Dave’s face, smashing his shades and everything. 

Jade forgot the book. 

Shit.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I didn't post a chapter last week, life happened. That being said, I hope you enjoy this chapter! Comments are appreciated!

“Ok, Jade, please repeat to the boys what you just told me.”

Thirty seconds later, and the four of them were standing in the hall, with the kids left in the living room, told to look after themselves for a minute.

Rose zoned out while Jade was explaining, and instead watched the boys faces. Dave had seemed concerned when Rose called them both over, and as she watched his reactions confirmed that he had already worked out what was going on. 

John looked confused more than anything. Jade finished her explanation, and before Rose or her brother could say anything, John jumped in.

“What? I thought you had brought it with you?”

“I thought I left it in my bag!” Jade was pulling on her hair so hard that Rose worried she might rip it out. 

“Why would you leave it in your bag?”

“I don’t know.”

Jade flung her arms out wide as she said this, nearly hitting Rose. She looked close to tears. She then pulled her arms back, wrapped them round herself.

“I’m so sorry.”

Rose rested a hand on her shoulder.

“It’s fine Jade. It’s ok, we’ve got this.”

They made and held eye contact. Rose tried to convey a calming tone with her face, but she wasn’t sure how well she succeeded. Jade still looked anxious, so probably not that well.

Rose swallowed.

“We just need to summon a demon. Any demon. If we get it wrong, we can just reset. Summon Karkat again, start over. Or we could try to summon the time demon without knowing their name.”

Behind Jade, John frowned. “Would that work?”

Probably not, Rose thought. She glanced at Dave, who shrugged minutely. 

“It’s worth a shot.”

“Why can’t we just summon one of the ones we know?”

Rose bit her lip. They could do that. It would be safer, and she would get to talk to Kanaya or Karkat again. But Dave had just spoken to Karkat, and he wasn’t able to do anything. And if they attempted to summon a different demon, then one of three things could happen.

1) They manage to summon the right demon, and get to advance along the pattern

2) They somehow find the life demon, Feferi, who may be able to help them in their predicament

3) They summon a demon who is neither of the other two, and thereby learn a new demon, and possibly their place in the order

It was worth the risk. 

“If we summon one of the ones we know, we won’t learn anything new.”

“But what if they’re dangerous?” This was Jade. She still had her arms around herself, hugging herself. 

“We already took that risk with Kanaya and Karkat. Besides, we’re going to have to summon them all later anyway.”

That probably wasn’t the most comforting thing to say, but it was the truth. Jade took a moment before nodding. Her expression changed to one of determination, but Rose knew that she definitely still felt bad. Like this was her fault. She hoped to be able to convince her otherwise. 

She looked over at the two boys. Dave shrugged again, and John smiled. Not very convincingly, but it made her feel better none the less.

“That’s some sound reasoning. Which one should we try to summon? And how?”

Good question.

Rose’s current plan was to bullshit it and hope for the best. (Which had clearly worked oh so well thus far.) Saying that wasn’t really going to make them feel better. She had to say something to make them more confident, to make Jade feel like it’s not her fault, have some kind of plan.

She looked at John

His smile changed from confident to soft. God, she hated when he did that, she couldn’t lie to that face. She looked away.

“I don’t know.”

“Then I guess we’re going to have to work it out together.”

Rose felt herself smile.

“Right.”

This was a terrible idea, and they had absolutely no plan, but at least they were doing it together. 

John went back into the living room, to tell the kids they had to go do something, and they’ll be back soon, and while he did that, Dave went up to the observatory. Jade and Rose went to Rose’s room, to gather the necessary materials. 

Rose had all of the candles in a neat pile in one of the corners of her room, divided by colour. Jade went over to look through them, and while she did that, Rose grabbed the bag of crystals from on her bookshelf. She opened the small bad and frowned. They were the same ones she had used for summoning both Karkat and Kanaya. She really needed to purify them before using them again, or to use new ones, but unfortunately she didn’t really have time to do that now. She could do it this evening, after classes, leave them in the moonlight. Or she could leave them next to a lit candle while music was playing. But they’ll have to do for now.

“Hey Rose?”

Rose closed the bag and looked over at where Jade was crouching next to the candle pile. She had picked up a pink one and was turning it over in her hands.

“Yeah?”

“What colours are we going with?”

Rose walked over and knelt next to her. A good question. She didn’t have all of the associations between the demons, their names, colours, and elements memorized, so she didn’t know for certain which one would attract the demon she wanted. 

“Not the grey ones, those were for Karkat. Those green ones were for Kanaya,” She points to the half melted green ones, “so not those either. I believe that, from what we’ve seen, the more candles they need, the stronger they are, or at least, the further along in the order. Though, we’ve only seen two demons, so that may be incorrect.”

She held her hand out for the pink one and when Jade passed it to her, she put it back with the others.

“I’d like to test that theory though. So, I think we should try one of the ones with fewer candles.”

Jade picked up a red candle.

“Is there meant to be only one of these?”

Rose frowned. “Yes, I think so. Some of them had very few. There’s only two brown ones if you look.”

Jade looked. 

“I see. Should we try this one then? Will it even work?”

How was Rose supposed to know that? She shrugged.

“Jade, I am making shit up as I go along right now, but that one candle is supposed to be perfectly adequate for one of the demons in the book, yes. Do I know which one? No. But do I think it’s worth trying? Definitely.”

Jade tapped the candle against the floor. 

“Sorry again, for forgetting the book.”

Rose placed a hand on her shoulder. 

“It’s alright. We know you forget things.”

The noise the candle made when Jade hit the floor with it wasn’t that loud all things considered, but it was loud enough to startle Rose.

“That doesn’t make it alright! This was important.”

Jade looked close to tears again.

“Hey. Jade, look at me?”

She didn’t meet her gaze.

“Ok, you don’t have to if you don’t want to. But please, don’t blame yourself for this. We already had this whole conversation.”

Jade waved the hand not holding the candle vaguely. “That was different.”

“No, it wasn’t.”

“Yes, it was!”

“Ok, how was it different then?”

Jade held the candle tight in her hand and drew circles on the floor with it. 

“Last time, we didn’t know what the stakes were. How important it was. Last time, I didn’t mess up by forgetting something important. This time, it actually is my fault.”

Before Rose could say anything else, there was a knock on the door.

Dave was standing there, and he cleared his throat, as if knocking hadn’t already gotten their attention.

“So, um, I can see that you’re having a moment, and that’s cool and all, but we’ve kind of got to get a move on.”

Rose looked at Jade, and she nodded. 

“Wanna stay here for a sec?”

“Please.”

“Alright.”

Rose got up, and left the room with Dave. He raised an eyebrow at her, and she shook her head. She didn’t want to explain it to him right now. He nodded once and they went on to the observatory, where John was waiting for them. He must have gone past them while she was talking to Jade.

They set up the circle quickly, and Jade joined them just as Rose finished up. She sat down in her circle, and John leant over from his to whisper to her. They had a hushed conversation that Rose could only hear if she focused on it, and she made an effort not to.

Rose reached into her pocket and pulled out the keychain she kept all of the offerings on. She just needed to remember which one was which. One of them was a bright red dragon’s head. She pulled it off and placed it in the centre of the circle. 

They stopped talking all together when Rose began speaking. She said her piece easily, knowing the words by heart. 

And then they waited.

And they waited.

And nothing happened.

Nothing happened for so long that Rose worried that this time, nothing was going to happen, they just weren’t going to be able to summon someone.

But then. 

The keyring moved.

And then, so fast it was almost as if their brains were playing tricks on them, and they’d been there the whole time, there was a demon standing in front of them.


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning for mentions of alcoholism, and somewhat graphic description.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long hiatus! I do now have a backlog of chapters, so another possible hiatus won't be for a while. With that said, I hope you enjoy this chapter! It took me a while to write, but I hope you think it was worth it! As always comments, are appreciated, and you're always free to message me on tumblr!

It was plainly evident that this was not the time demon. It was also plainly evident exactly which demon this was. Rose had spent ten minutes creating a collage dedicated to her, with her brother, who had threatened to hang it up in the living room. It was evident in the points of her horns, the sharpness of her teeth, the red glare that her glasses gave off. Although, the largest giveaway was the dragon cane she clasped in her hand.

Terezi Pyrope, Seer of Mind.

Unlike the other two demons they had summoned, her clothes weren’t black. Perhaps Karkat and Kanaya were the only ones who dressed like that, perhaps Terezi was the exception, but then, Rose supposed that they were going to have to find out later. Instead, Terezi was dressed in red and teal. Her outfit was, to put it plainly, an eyesore, which was understandable, considering that, from what Rose recalled, she was blind. 

“Wow, what a delicious arrangement I have in front of me, you all smell absolutely delightful, ooh and these candles!”

The demon then reached for one of the candles next to Dave but hit the invisible boundary of the inner circle and pulled back.

Dave stared at her.

“Why do you want a candle?”

Terezi laughed, and the sounds grated on Rose’s ears.

“To eat it! Red is the most delectable of colours and these candles are just irresistible.”

The two of them stared at each other. Or at least, Rose assumed they were staring at each other, but with both of their eyewear it was impossible to tell. They kept their glasses locked onto each other as Dave carefully picked up the candle, blew it out and then (before anyone could stop him, or tell him it might be a bad idea, although Rose was a little too shocked to do so herself) pushed it into Terezi’s circle. 

Terezi laughed again, picked it up and then took a huge bite out of the side of it.

She was...not what Rose had expected. But then, none of the demons they’d summoned so far had been, so really why did Rose keep her expectations anyway? Maybe she was clinging on to the faint hope that one of these days they were going to summon a demon that was absolutely ruthless and could petrify someone with their glare, instead of a pissy teenager, an ethereal goddess, or a maniac with sharp teeth that were now covered in red candle wax. 

“ooh is this circle drawn with chalk?”

The demon dropped the candle and let it roll back out of the circle towards Rose. She gently kicked it away from her and out of the circle completely, and it left a smear of slightly blue slime behind it. Lovely. 

In that time, Terezi had leant towards then very edge of the circle and was sniffing at it. She opened her mouth, but before she could do anything Rose stopped her.

“Please do not lick the circle.”

Terezi sat back up properly and crossed her arms.

“Well, Rose Lalonde you are a no good, no fun. No wonder Kanaya thinks so highly of you.”

“Yeah Rose, let her lick the circle.” Dave added.

“Are you kidding me?”

Dave mimicked Terezi’s posture, arms crossed over his chest, but she could see him smirking just a little bit. She looked around at her friends. John looked disgusted. Jade was trying not to laugh.

“We aren’t letting her lick the circle. What if it broke it? While I must admit, I am somewhat curious as to what would happen, it’s too dangerous for us to risk it.”

Dave snorted.

“As if summoning a demon isn’t risky enough to start off with.”

“Summoning a demon with safety precautions. I’m not going to let her tamper with one of them.”

Inside the circle, Terezi laughed. “How exactly, miss lavender lips, are you going to stop me?”

And with that she leant forwards and licked the circle.

Or at least she tried to, but hit the barrier. The visual result of this was something like someone licking a glass pane. She licked up it, right in front of Rose and then pulled away and laughed. The saliva stayed in mid-air for a second after she pulled away then dropped down onto the floor, splashing up onto Rose’s jeans.

“Right, ok we’re banishing her, right now.”

“Aw, come on Rose, she just got here!”

Surprisingly enough, it wasn’t Dave that said that but John. His disgust had apparently turned into amusement. 

“Mutiny. We have to banish her soon anyway. The kids are downstairs, and we have to get to class. We can’t just stay here and chat.”

Dave rolled his eyes, Rose could tell because he also moved his head and whole body along with them. 

Terezi interjected. 

“Can I have the candle back at least? It tasted really nice.”

Rose sighed and reached behind her, cringing as her hand found the sopping candle and she slid it back into the circle. Terezi picked it up and stuck the wick end into her mouth.

“After you’re done with that, you’re leaving.”

“Fine, but I have to show her the collage we did. She needs to see it-”

Rose stopped hearing what Dave was saying. It wasn’t that she stopped listening, it was that his voice suddenly sounded like it was underwater and coming from so far away that she honestly couldn’t comprehend him anymore. 

Dave frowned at her, and leant forwards, but his movements were slower than normal. He asked her a question, but she couldn’t understand him. Rose turned and looked at everyone else, they were frowning at her in confusion. 

As she looked around the room, the walls slowly began to secrete a liquid. A dark, deep red liquid, dripping down and forming puddles at the edge of the room. It filled the room with its rich fruity scent. Wine.

Rose looked down at her feet. 

The spittle from earlier had turned into wine as well. And it smeared right over the edge of the circle. The chalk line where the candle had passed over was blurred completely, and there was one thin but clear line right through it. A gap in the circle.

Rose snapped her gaze up to see Terezi, who appeared unaffected by whatever was touching everyone else. Well, maybe just Rose, because everyone else was looking on in total confusion. 

“What are you doing to me?”

Terezi frowned at her.

“What do you mean, what do you see?”

In the corner of her vision, Rose watched the pools expand and join together. The room now seemed to be tinged purple and growing darker. 

“Wine. What are you doing? Tell me. I swear I will banish you right now if you don’t stop.”

She felt a pain in her hand and looked down to see blood dripping from her finger tips. She’d picked her nails right off her left hand and was now digging her remaining thumbnail into her palm. She was shaking slightly. 

Of all the things. 

Wine.

Blood she could deal with.

But wine?

Terezi was looking at the circle and apparently reached the same conclusion Rose did. 

Rose expected her to laugh. Or make a coy remark, as that was all she had been doing so far this morning, but instead her face visibly paled.

“We actually broke the circle. My powers are leaking through into your world because we broke the circle with a fucking candle.”

Rose could feel her breakfast moving around in her stomach as the stench of the room rolled over her again and again, getting constantly stronger as the wine creeped in. 

“What are your powers? What do you mean?”

Terezi waved the hand that was holding the candle vaguely in Rose’s direction.

“Mind. I’m the seer of mind. I make you SEE what’s in your mind. Your deepest darkest fears, your biggest regrets. Whatever. It can be pretty useful when I’m in control of it.”

Rose hunched over and retched. The smell felt like it was assaulting her nostrils. 

“I need to banish you.”

Terezi nodded and threw the candle back out of the circle. It sped past John, who reeled away in shock, a look of utter confusion on his face. It collided with the wall and fell to the floor, landing with a splash the pool of wine. Pool, Olympic sized swimming. 

Rose pulled herself upright. 

“I banish you, Terezi Pyrope, Seer of Mind, the one who doles out justice, from this dimension, return to your home and do not touch any here with your dark powers.”

With that, in an instant, the room returned to normal. The smell was gone, so were the pools of wine, and the purple tinge to the room. The candle was resting on the floor, and in the centre of the circle rested the dragon keyring. 

John, Jade and Dave were staring at Rose with a range of emotions from confusion to concern.

“Rosie, you alright?”

The sickness in Rose’s stomach was still present and Rose stood up, took half a step out of her circle before her knees gave out under her and she tumbled down onto all fours and threw up.


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now for something different! I hope you all enjoy this chapter, comments are appreciated!

It was five minutes after Terezi had been banished.

Dave had taken Rose to the bathroom to help her clean up and make sure she was ok. He was trying to get her to tell them what happened.

John had offered to clean up the mess in the observatory, and Dave had nodded.

Jade had been tasked with keeping the children out of the way, making sure they don’t go near it.

They had 10 minutes before they had to leave. 

Ten minutes in which so many things could go very wrong.

And it was all Jade’s fault.

She knew that it was. The others weren’t going to blame her, much. But it was still her fault. She’d forgotten the book, they’d summoned the wrong demon and now Rose was probably throwing up in the bathroom. 

She had had one job.

One.

Fucking.

Job.

Bring the book. That was all she had to do. She knew Rose didn’t have any copies anymore, she KNEW that. But she still managed to forget her copy.

Of all of the times for her to forget something.

It had to be now. When their lives were at stake. 

Jade punched the wall.

She regretted it instantly as she stared at the very slight dent in the wall and heard Dave call down from the bathroom.

“Everything alright down there?”

“Yeah, I’m good, I just tripped!”

“Ok, take care!”

“Yeah!”

Jade rubbed at her knuckles and went into the living room, where the four kids were.

Roxy and Jane were lying down next to each other in the middle of the room, facing the sofa on which the two boys were sat, Roxy and Jake both clutching a Nintendo DS in their hands. Jane glanced up as Jade entered the room.

“Hiya!”

“Hey guys, what’re you doing?”

Roxy answered without looking up from the game. 

“Janey and I are absolutely crushing those two at mariokart.”

“Not true!” Jake shouted. He then pulled the game even closer and a second later laughed, which was followed by Roxy groaning and dropping the game to the floor.

Dirk and Jake high fived.

“You guys play pretty well!"

Jane picked up the DS and closed it, then passed it back to Roxy.

“Did we play before this happened?”

Jade walked over to them and grabbed a throw pillow which had ended up on the floor.

“I’m not sure. Probably? My memory isn’t always that great.”

Dirk looked over at her, and she passed him the pillow which he put down next to him.

“Did you get hurt like us?”

She shook her head.

“No. I’ve never had good memory. I have a, um…my brain doesn’t work quite the same way as other people’s which means that I either remember things in perfect detail or I forget them very easily, and I often don’t remember to do things.”

Dirk nodded his head very seriously. Jake reached up and put his hand on her arm.

“That’s ok. We’ll help you.”

Jade gently lifted the arm he was holding and ruffled his hair.

“Thanks Jake.”

“No problem. Do you know how to play mariokart?”

Jade shook her head again, and motioned for Dirk and Jake to scoot over on the sofa, which they did. 

“We can teach you!”

Jade sat down next to them and leant over Jake’s shoulder as the kids began another game.

She was half paying attention, but also listening intently to the sounds in the house around them, making sure that none of the others were nearby and about to walk into the kids. She had to be ready if she had to distract the kids should the need arise. When they were halfway through the game, Jade heard footsteps in the hallway. A second later John stuck his head round the door.

“Heya kids, how are you doing? They behaving themselves Jade?”

“Yeah! They’re just teaching me how to play mariokart!”

John grinned at his sister.

“Nice! That means you can finally join in when we play against each other, we can team up against Dave and Rose!”

“Or she could team up with Rose and go against you and Dave.” Roxy added from the floor. 

“True! Jade, can you pop out here for a sec?”

“Sure!”

She gently disentangled herself from where she’d ended up with Jake basically sitting on top of her, and then followed John back into the hallway.

“So, what was up with Rose?”

Just before she banished Terezi, Rose had started acting as if she couldn’t hear them, and then apparently started having a panic attack with no visible cause. They were…concerned to say the least.

John took his glasses off and wiped them on his shirt.

“From what Dave would tell me, there was a gap in the circle and so Terezi’s mind powers leaked over and caused Rose to start hallucinating.”

Jade clasped a hand to her face reflexively. 

“That must have been terrible!” 

She couldn’t even imagine what Rose had seen that made her actually throw up, but it could only have been dreadful. And for her to have the strength to carry out the banishment, while going through whatever it was.

“Is she doing ok now?”

John put his glasses back on.

“Yeah. She’s going to go to class, she says she’ll be alright.”

Jade nodded. “Ok, good.”

“Yeah. And by the way, I know you didn’t trip earlier. I saw the dent in the wall. Are you still beating yourself up about forgetting the book?”

Jade flung her hand out.

“Of course I am! This is my fault! I should have left that book where I found it.”

Why did she even give it to Rose? How could she have thought that was a good idea? And to then forget it?

John placed a hand on her shoulder and squeezed tightly.

“You didn’t know what would happen, how could you think this would happen? You’ve come across so much fake mumbo jumbo, of course you would think it’s fake! Everyone would think it’s fake! And you can’t help forgetting things. You know that.”

He didn’t try to make eye contact, which she appreciated. It make her uncomfortable, and he knew that. She sighed.

“I know. I know.”

He offered her a hug, which she accepted, and he held her firmly. It was nice. His chin was a little scratchy where the little bits of baby stubble scraped against the side of her face, but it was too brief to bother her for too long.

“It’s been a long fucking day.”

Jade could agree with that. It was only last night that the kids had shown up, this day felt like it had been dragging on forever. 

“Oh are you guys hugging? Can I get in on that? Big old corridor hug pile up in here?”

Dave was at the bottom of the stairs, Rose a few steps behind him. 

“Yes, definitely.” 

Dave then crossed the rest of the distance between them and squished himself in between the two of them.

“Rose, wanna join us?”

She had her arms wrapped around her waist.

“No, thank you.”

Dave shrugged, and Jade felt his arm brushing against her stomach as he did. “Sure thing.”

Jade shifted slightly, beginning to get uncomfortable, and the two boys then let go. 

“Alright, we all good to go to class?”

John and Rose nodded. 

“Yeah, my stuff’s in the car.”

Dave and Rose were both holding their bags, presumably with their stuff in. Jade also noticed that Rose had changed into, now that she was looking. 

“Jade, are you sure you’re ok with staying here?”

“Yes.”

She had to be, didn't she? And talking to the kids would be a nice distraction from, well, everything else.

“Ok, let’s say good bye to the kids then.”

The four of them went into the living room, and bade the kids farewell. Then the three going off to class left, and Jade sat back down on the sofa. 

Jane looked up at her.

“Don’t you have to go to class Jade?”

“Nope, my timetable is much more flexible than those guys to accommodate for my work, so as long as I get work done, I can show up to class pretty much whenever.”

“Oh cool,” Jake said, leaning against her side. “what’s your job!”

Jade smiled. 

“Well I’m glad you asked Jake. I’m an explorer.”


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> back to our regularly scheduled perspective. I hope you enjoy this chapter, comments are appreciated!

Class was immemorable. The rest day passed by so quickly that Dave honestly couldn’t remember any of it. Same dull bullshit as always. Him being sleep deprived from all of the events of last night may have had something to do with it. John had switched over with Jade at lunch, apparently all of them were hyped up to be explorers. That’s Jade’s influence on kids. He’d taken Jane and Jake home when Dave got there. 

Rose returned home an hour later, looking utterly dead inside. He could relate to that, they’d had, what? Three hours sleep, max, on top of everything else that had happened. Dave had snatched a couple of books from one of Rose’s shelves and handed them to the kids to amuse themselves for a bit, and they’d been quietly chatting in the room Roxy was sleeping in for a while. 

Rose dropped her bag to the floor and dropped herself into her armchair, and Dave pushed a glass of cold water across the coffee table to her. 

“Thanks.” 

She picked it up and pressed it against her forehead instead of drinking it.

“No prob. How was psyche?”

Rose made a grunting noise instead of replying, and drunk the water.

Dave nodded.

“So. Monthly amateur armchair therapy minds un-fucking bonanza time?”

Rose wiped her mouth on her sleeve and frowned.

“Isn’t it a week from now?”

Dave shrugged as she placed the empty glass on the table.

“Wanna move it forward?”

She slumped back into the chair.

“Sure.”

“Nice, I’ll go first.”

He plucked the shades from his face and put them next to the glass.

“Having Dirk here is really fucking me up. Even more than the demons. I spoke to Karkat about it a bit last night, and he just reminds me of so much bad shit Rose.”

Rose nodded and waved her hand for him to carry on.

“I know he’s not him. He’s clearly a kid. But I don’t understand what’s going on, and Karkat doesn’t know, and he might just die or get his memories back or morph into Him at any second, and I don’t know how to feel about it. I don’t know how to feel about him. I don’t want to hate him forever, but I can’t trust him and grow attached to him if I don’t know what’s going to happen. I don’t know what to do. It’s not even been one day, and I’m just….”

Dave trailed off and slumped forwards in his chair, resting his elbows on his knees and cupped his face in his hands.

“Your go.”

Rose sighed.

“Right, ok.”

She pulled her legs up to her chest.

“So. Could you hear what Terezi and I were saying?”

Now Dave was confused. For the whole time, they’d just been staring at each other while Rose slowly unravelled.

“No, neither of you were saying anything until you banished her.”

Rose seemed surprised at that.

“Huh. I guess that must have been in my head too. Ok then. Well, yeah, like I said earlier, the circle broke where we were fucking around with the candle and she got into my head. I started hallucinating. It was…It was wine. She can show someone their deepest fears, their regrets, and the walls started bleeding wine.”

Holy shit.

Dave sat back in his chair.

“That’s fucked up.”

Rose nodded. She put her thumb in her mouth, apparently done with talking.

That was…seriously messed up.

After their mother died, Rose had developed an alcohol dependency to cope with it. It hadn’t been pretty. She had made a lot of bad decisions back then. She hadn’t been a very nice person. Her issues with being up front turned to straight up lying and hiding her drinking habits. They had an intervention and gradually she put herself back together, but it had been a dark time for all of them. 

She hadn’t drunk since. Nor had any of the rest of them.

And for her to go through that, and relive it. For it to be her worst regret or deepest fear.

“That Terezi chick was messed up. Why are half of these trolls assholes? I’m gonna fuck her up.”

Rose jolted forwards.

“What? No, it’s ok! It was an accident!”

“How the fuck was it an accident?”

Rose sat back.

“Well. Her powers were bleeding in, she had no control over them. She seemed…Really upset actually.”

“Right.” That was oddly reassuring. If she’d been a dick then Dave was going to rip up the collage he’d made of her. She’d seemed so cool, weird, but cool. He was glad she wasn’t a dick. “It’s still fucked up tho.”

“Yeah.”

“You doing ok?”

Rose made a noncommittal noise and hand gesture combo. 

“Could be better. Could be worse. Could definitely have gone without that reminder this morning. Could really go for a nap. But I’ll be fine. I've had the whole afternoon to get over it.”

Dave nodded.

“Good to hear.”

“Yeah. But as for your problems.”

She sat forwards again, picked up the glass tapped her nails against it. 

“We need to know what’s going to happen. Because if we understand the situation better, then we know what to do, and how to react. Right?”

He nodded again, it made sense.

“Right. Where are you going with this?”

“Well, I think we need to summon Karkat.”

Dave raised his eyebrow.

“Seriously?”

Rose raised her eyebrow in return. 

“Seriously. He would know best what’s about to happen.”

“I already asked him, he has no clue.”

Rose got up.

“Well, we can always ask again. Besides, we need to summon him next anyway.”

She had a point there. She took her glass out to the kitchen, and Dave followed her. 

“Wait, do you mean right now?”

Rose shrugged and headed past him, into the hall and up the stairs, Dave trailing a few paces behind.

“No time like the present.”

They paused outside of the room where Roxy and Dirk were playing, heard that they were deeply engaged in whatever they were doing and continued on up to the observatory.   
It was exactly how they had left it, except that it wasn’t.

John had taken his cleaning up job very seriously, and had gotten a lot done in just 15 minutes. The comically large Colonel Sassacre’s was shoved into the corner it was in more neatly, and the remains of the telescope had been swept up into a nice pile in another. But the biggest difference was that the circle was gone completely. Not just the candles and crystals, although all of them were gone, even the one Terezi had bitten. They had probably been put away in Rose’s room. 

No, John had gone further than cleaning up the sick and the saliva. He’d wiped away the circle completely.


	23. Chapter 23

Dave pressed his hand against his face.

“Oh John, what did you do?”

He probably thought that he was doing them a favour, but god. This wasn’t good. Dave looked over at Rose, to find that she was oddly unaffected.

“No, this is good. The old one was smudged anyway. We can make a new better circle like this.”

Dave watched as she crossed the room, and grabbed a piece of chalk from on top of one of the bookshelves. 

“Besides, there’s only two of us. It seems silly to use such a big circle.”

Rose stood in the centre of the room and Dave walked over to join her. She sat. He copied her. She drew a circle just to the right of the space between them, then offered her hands to him, palm up. He took them. 

Dave watched as she closed her eyes and quietly, barely loud enough to be heard, set up the circle, and called in the elements, the gods and goddesses, everything else. Despite the chaos of everything else, she seemed calm doing this. This routine, this ritual, was soothing for her. She breathed deeply and opened her eyes, letting go of his hands, allowing them to fall to her sides.

“The keyring, please?”

Dave took the ring from his pocket and placed it in the middle of the circle. A second after he retracted his hand, the keyring melted, and soon, Karkat was sat in between them. 

“Did you bulgelickers fuck up already? And where are the other two?”

“Hello Karkat”

He looked at her directly and rolled her eyes at her for not answering his question. Ok, so today was an arrogant dick day.

“Hello Rose, now will you answer my fucking questions?”

Rose smiled.

“Or course. We apparently summoned the wrong person again, as you all have collectively neglected to tell us what the actual correct order is, so that’s not exactly our fault. And the other two are at home.”

So she wasn’t going to blame Jade. Good, it wasn’t her fault. Rose seemed much calmer now that she had a course of action, and had had time to recover. 

“Now, can you answer a couple of questions for us?”

Karkat shrugged.

“Sure.”

“Lovely, thank you for being so co-operative. First of all, will we always have to restart the sequence if we summon a demon out of turn?”

Dave raised his eyebrows. He didn’t realise that Rose had been putting so much thought into it, but what did he expect from her? Even sleep deprived Rose thought things through.

Karkat shrugged.

“If you summon someone too early, then yeah, you’ve got to start all over again. But if, for some fucking reason, you want to summon someone again, after you’ve already summoned them and moved past their point in the chain, then yeah, that would work and you wouldn’t have to start over.”

Huh.

“You mean if, for example, I went beyond Kanaya’s place in the sequence of events, I would be able to summon her at any time?”

Dave coughed. Was she seriously doing this now? Was that actually what brought this on? Seriously? God.

Karkat made a gagging noise.

“Yes, theoretically, now could you please refrain from such terrible red solicitations in front of me ever ever again, I seriously do not want to know. Ever.”

Dave couldn’t help but agree, despite not quite knowing what he meant by red solicitations. 

“Very interesting and good to know, but I will refrain from talking about that further.”

“Thank fuck.”

“Now, are you certain that there is nothing that can be done about our guardians?”

Karkat groaned, and did the same eyeroll/body roll that Dave does, except at least Dave does it because people can’t see his fucking eyes, not just for exaggeration. 

“Look, I already spoke with Dave about this!”

Karkat threw his arm out towards Dave, while still facing Rose.

“Can’t you nooksniffing idiots talk about it between yourselves or are you incapable of having a conversation without having a being from another dimension present? Because if that’s true then I have no idea how you manage to do anything.”

Rose smirked slightly.

“We already spoke about it, I just wanted to double check that you haven’t thought of anything since you spoke to him.”

Karkat crossed his arms at that.

“Oh, I haven’t.”

Dave could feel his face fall slightly. It wasn’t like he was disappointed exactly, but he had hoped that he’d at least considered it. 

Karkat glanced over at him and deflated a little. An expression crossed his face very quickly, and then was gone. He uncrossed his arms.

“Look, maybe, and this is a huge fucking maybe mind you, the size of a million flaming-ass fucking suns, Aradia will know something about it, and be able to do it, but that is less likely than Gamzee’s messiahs being real.”

Dave had no idea who this Gamzee was, or what messiahs had to do with anything but he smiled. Rose was smiling too, Dave could hear it in her voice.

“And is Aradia perhaps the next person in the chain, or will we have to flail around like children attempting to grasp at the coat tails of your wisdom to try and find her, or who is next if not her?”

Karkat rolled his eyes again, then sighed. 

“No, it’s her. May as well fucking tell you if I caused all of this shit.”

Dave frowned. Karkat actually seemed sad. It was regret, Dave realised quickly. Karkat regretted this. Damn.

“I take it back bro, you didn’t cause this.”

Well, no more than Rose or Jade. It wasn’t like he had cursed himself. Karkat didn’t like that answer.

“I did though.”

“No, you didn’t, this isn’t your fault.”

Karkat threw his hands out, just barely avoiding the edge of the circle.

“Well maybe it is, Dave! In ways you don’t know! Maybe you don’t have a fucking clue what you’re talking about, as always, you insufferable bulgesucker. Just hurry up and banish me.”

So that’s what he was going to be like? Express one genuine emotion and then get angry? Damn. Well Dave wasn’t having it, he could sit here and talk about it like everyone else.

“Why, you got somewhere to be?”

“No, it’s just that being around you chafes on my bulge.” He turned away from him. “Rose, kick me out.”

Before Dave could protest and explain his (fairly inexplicable) reasons for wanting him to stay, Rose replied.

“Sure, one last thing.”

“Euuugh, what?”

Dave genuinely couldn’t tell if the disgust was for real or not, but he did seem antsy to leave. Like, oh no, I said too much, gotta get pissy and scoot.

“Next time you wish to express your desire for having my brother up close with your personal areas, please tell him so in private.”

What?

“What?”

And then, very quickly before either of them could say another word, or even process what she just said, Rose uttered the banishment incantation and he was gone.

Rose stood up and brushed dirt he couldn’t see off of her lap. A second later, he remember to close his mouth and also get up. She was already at the door by the time he started speaking.

“Are you kidding me? Is that seriously what this was about?”

Rose shrugged and didn’t look at him, leaving him glaring at her hair. Her roots were beginning to grow out.

“I’m just thinking that you told him about what was going on even before you told me. You summoned him in the middle of the night in a graveyard.”

He could not believe what he was hearing. He followed her out of the room and down the stairs.

“No, do not. Don’t even go there. It wasn’t as cute as you’re making it out to be.”

She turned and smiled at him over her shoulder.

“Still, my point stands.”

If she tripped and fell the rest of the way down the stairs, he probably would feel better about it than he should.

“Rose, if you want to fuck a demon, then as your brother I am not going to stop you, but do not rope me into this.”

She laughed, and he got the terrible feeling that he was just digging the hole deeper. She wasn’t going to stop now. Rose Lalonde does not know when to quit.


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't really have much to say, these recent chapters have been rather chill in comparison to some others. I hope y'all enjoy it none the less! Comments are appreciated!

The next morning, Rose packed her bag with an even mix of reading material and summoning tools, packed her family into the car and drove over to John and Jade’s house on the other side of town.

Roxy and Dirk had decided that they wanted to go over and hang out at their friends’ house because, according to Dirk, Jake wanted to show them around the garden. The only real reason for summoning the demons at their house had been the circle, which was now gone, and because it was a Saturday and none of them had classes, Rose had agreed to this excursion, and so today, they were all going to spend the day at the Harley/Egbert household. 

They were mostly quiet for the car journey, Dave playing some of his favourite music on the radio, and everyone bar Rose herself attempting to rap along, until they reached their destination. Roxy leaned out of the window to get a better look.

“Roxy, don’t do that.”

She leaned back in. 

“Is that really their house?”

Said house used to be a regular suburban dwelling, albeit one that backed onto a large forest, however over time, as it changed ownership, it began to change appearance to suit the present landlord. At one point, it had doubled as a joke store when it was solely owned by their grandmother. Who, Rose supposed, was Jane now. But then, when Jake moved in, he constructed a tower in the back, right on the edge of the forest, which was mostly unused during their father’s residence, but now acted as Jade’s room.

“Yes, that is really their house.”

“Woah.” 

Rose pulled up in the drive, parked and got out of the car. She looked over at the kids and saw looks of astonishment on their faces. The tower really was something to behold, but you got used to it after a while. It’s also significantly less awesome when you fall out of the window and end up in hospital with two broken legs. That was not fun. 

Rose stepped onto the doormat, but before she could ring the bell or knock, she heard running and yelling inside, and a second later Jade was flinging open the door, Jake directly behind her.

“Hello!”

Rose laughed.

“Hi, you certainly seem excited.”

Jake pushed his way past Jade, then politely asked Rose to step aside so he could go and hug Roxy.

“Well yeah, they’re been looking forward to having them round so I kinda got caught up in it too!”

Dirk had now joined in the conversation and the three of them were talking excitably. 

“I can see how.”

“So can I, but can we move this conversation inside, I’m freezing my ass off here.”

At Dave’s request, they moved on inside, exchanging a few brief hugs in the hallway before continuing on into the living room, where a fire was roaring in the fireplace, making it warm and cosy, a stark contrast to the sharp air outside, although Rose knew that they kept the fire lit even in summer, although admittedly, it was kept on a considerably lower heat. 

Jane and John where sat at the piano on the other side of the room, John gesturing at the sheet music he had in front of them. He looked over his shoulder at them as they walked in, and waved, but turned back to Jane.

“He was trying to teach her how to play that one all last night.” said Jade from just behind Rose. 

Dave had already sat himself down on the sofa, his arm thrown over the back and his legs kicked up on the seat next to him. Roxy had walked over to the piano and was looking over their shoulders to get a closer look at what they were doing, and Dirk was still standing near the doorway, chattering excitedly with Jake. 

“What song is it?”

Jade shrugged, and went and sat down next to Dave. “I’m not sure. Something classic. Mozart?”

Jade played music as much as the rest of them, more in fact, as she played two instruments while the rest of them only played one. But she was far more interested in composing songs of her own, rather than ones that had been done before a million times over. She’d written a lot of songs for all of them to play together, back when they made a valiant attempt at having a garage band, much as that was possible while one member was stuck in Texas. They played a little bit when Dave returned, however it was far more for nostalgia value than any illusions they might still foster that they could make some sort of profession of it.

Rose was snapped from her trip down memory lane by Jane beginning to play. Two bars in, and she recognised it as Beethoven symphony five. She smiled as Jane haltingly made her way through the first half of it, remembering how she learnt it alongside John, her on her violin, him on that same piano. 

They applauded when she finished as much as she could do, because honestly for half a day’s work being able to do that much at all was genuinely impressive. Rose got the impression that Jane was able to play before she died, and was remembering more than learning, which did somewhat diminish the success. 

Jade called from the sofa, “You did great Jane!”

Jane smiled, stood up and did a small curtsey, which got her another small round of applause, simply because it was so adorable. She was wearing capris instead of a skirt, which meant that she was clutching at the air at her sides, which was all the more precious.

John stood up and closed the book they were practising from, before putting it away on the shelf and coming over to greet Rose and her brother properly. He pulled her into a hug and she saw out of the corner of her eye Jane and Roxy crossing the room to join the boys.

“How are you doing today?” Rose felt the question where her head was pressed against John’s chest more than she heard it. She shrugged against him. 

“Better than yesterday.” Her response was muffled by his shirt, but he seemed to have understood her nonetheless. He released her and went and hugged Dave, who had already gotten up in anticipation. 

Rose’s attention was drawn to the doorway, where the four children were making more noise than was absolutely necessary. She was glad that they’d become friends very quickly, she didn’t know what they’d have done if they hadn’t gotten along quite this well. Although, this may well be the last day they spend together, is things with Aradia went in their favour. Whatever that meant. Most likely them returning to the afterlife, or wherever it was their spirits and bodies were raised from.

Which was what they wanted, Rose told herself, despite the unsure feeling rising in her at that thought, and the joy she had felt earlier at their antics fresh in her mind. Rationally she knew that Dave and herself were unable to care for two ten year olds. Not when they couldn’t legally get them into a school, or do anything because they didn’t exist. 

Nevermind how much money she had to spare from her mother’s inventions, or how much space their house had, or how home schooling was an option. They didn’t have the time, or energy. 

Rose tried very hard to convince herself of this.

It didn’t work as well as she hoped, watching Jake say something that actually made Dirk smile, and Roxy bend over with laughter. 

Either way, it had only been one day, and in the whole scheme of things, in comparison to all of their possible lifespans, this short time they have with them would soon be forgotten. 

Or they could regret whatever decision they make for the rest of their lives, however long they may be.

Rose shook her head sharply. Their lives were going to be very short if they don’t summon a demon this morning, she needed to focus. She’d gotten a full night’s sleep, for once, so she should be more attentive, but that was clearly not the case.

“Jake, if you want to take them out into the garden and play, you can go ahead just don’t go too far! We’re going to be upstairs, so if you do need us, shout really loud, ok?”

John had come up behind Rose without her even noticing. The boy grinned, and he really did look like a young Jade, with his buck teeth and green glasses that didn’t sit evenly on the bridge of his nose. Possibly because they may well have been Jade’s glasses, and if they were, there was a very high chance they were broken.

“Understood!” 

And with that the four children ran out of the room, and the adults heard them head through the kitchen and out the backdoor. 

Rose turned back to the rest of them. 

“Right, where do you want me to set this stuff up?”


	25. Chapter 25

The room Jade lead them to was easily one of the weirdest looking rooms that Rose had ever walked into, which included the room that Dave used to store strange dead things. Which is to say, it was very clearly Jade’s bedroom. Which Rose knew, because she’d been there multiple times while growing up, but it was still something to adjust to. The mix of soft toys and posters contrasted with various ancient artefacts and science gear, all strewn around haphazardly. Topped off with a gun collection hung up on the wall, because her grandfather taught her to hunt as a child. 

Rose and Dave perched on the bed as Jade kicked her stuff around to make space, and John looked out of the window to keep an eye on the kids. Rose picked up her bag from where she’d left it at her feet, and quickly checked the contents. If anything had been damaged or broken, she didn’t know what she’d do. Well, they’d probably be fine, but it would make a mess of her bag. It was a small relief to see that nothing was damaged. 

“Ok, I think that’s as good as it’s going to get.”

Rose looked over. Jade had kicked most of her stuff into a pile in one corner of the room, and piled the remainder of her belongings onto already over flowing desks. She almost wondered why they didn’t do this somewhere else, before remembering that almost every room in their house was like this. This really was as good as they were going to get.

“This should be fine.”

She hoped so at least. There was just about enough room for all of them plus a demon. She may not be able to draw circle around all of them individually, but as long as no one broke the circle this time, they should be fine. Although, the bonus circles did manage to contain the effects just to Rose herself, which, while less than desirable, were far better than someone like Dave getting hit with that. 

As long as they set the circle properly and didn’t break it, they should be fine. She climbed off the bed and knelt on the floor, pulling her bag down next to her and pulling out the relevant items.

She spent the next few minutes just setting it up, calmly taking her time, knowing that they still had a while before they needed to rush. She was dimly aware of Jade taking the place she had vacated on the bed, and talking to Dave quietly. She finished up, and was honestly slightly disappointed that there was no indication that it would work. No flash of light, or warmth or anything. None of the others circles had, of course, and they had still worked, but it was still rather underwhelming. 

“OK, I’m done, come sit down.”

John walked over from the window, but didn’t sit down yet.

“Where?”

Rose frowned. That was a good question, but honestly, she doubted it even mattered. It hadn’t before, and to act like it had some impact now would be unnecessary and ridiculous.

“Just sit wherever.”

John raised an eyebrow, but sat down where he was, and Jade and Dave walked past Rose and took up the other side. Dave had sat next to her, same as before, but this time Jade was across from her, not John. It was somewhat ironic that they had gone from using a well-drawn and thought out arrangement of circles in her observatory to a circle drawn in about five minutes on Jade’s bedroom floor. They still had the candles and crystals, even though Rose had long since begun to suspect that they weren’t strictly necessary. Jade had texted her the materials she needed that morning, and she had just grabbed whichever crystals she thought would work and the correct candle. The single red candle which Terezi had taken a bite out of. They should have given her one of the white ones. 

It was a tight fit. They were almost knocking candles over with every slight movement, but they managed. Rose then bent over backwards to grab her bag which she’d shoved back out of the way, and fished out the correct keyring. A sheep one. She threw it into the centre of the circle, and closed her eyes. 

“I call upon the ancient beings of Alternia and grant them entrance to this realm, may you join us in this circle.”

She opened her eyes. If the other demons were anything to go by, this demon’s arrival was going to be a spectacle to watch. She was rather getting to enjoy this part. 

After an eternity of silent staring, but also only after a handful of seconds, the keyring began to fall apart. It began to decay in front of them, crumbling into pieces. Soon it was nothing more than a pile of plastic and paper and rust. It stayed there for a second, then a breeze that didn’t even touch the candles whipped the dust around and up and up, into the form of a girl, half breeze half debris, until they brought themselves together and fell away, revealing a demon of a similar looking age to the others, dressed in red robes and a pair of loose red trousers. She raised her head, which set her long black hair cascading down her back, tumbling onto the floor and tangling around her curled horns. 

She was facing Rose, as most of them had done, she realised, most likely because she was the one that called to them, and she opened her eyes and smiled at her.

“Rose, it is so nice to finally meet you!”

Before Rose could respond, the demon turned herself around.

“And Jade and John and Dave! It’s lovely to meet all of you as well!”

So, this was Aradia Megido.

She certainly was interesting. 

Aradia continued to talk.

“The others have been saying so much about you! They always do love to gossip whenever we get summoned, and you’re all doing so well! Oh it’s been ages since we’ve been summoned! And you’re all going to die horribly! I can’t wait to see who eventually does it!”

Rose blinked. As did everyone else. Rose stared at Aradia, silent. As did everyone else. Aradia turned back to Rose and grinned. Rose felt like she could see through Aradia’s skin to the smiling face of death and it chilled her to her core. 

Dave saved Rose from being the one to break the silence, as he cleared his throat. 

“Hey, Miss Time Demon? Are you happy to see us, or do you want us dead, because I am receiving some rather fucking mixed messages over here?”

Aradia turned to Dave, her grin fixed in place. Rose wondered if she ever stopped smiling. Or if perhaps she didn’t mean it as a smile but as a threat, she’d read that some animals bared their teeth as a sign of aggression. 

“My name is Aradia. Aradia Megido, Maid of Time, The One Who Guides the Dead, if you want to be more specific, but Miss Time Demon works too! And I suppose the answer to your question is both!”

“So, you want us dead. Right, good to know. I’m going to banish you then, it was lovely to meet you.”

What?!

Rose quickly grabbed his arm.

“We can’t banish her yet! Karkat said to ask her about the kids!”

“She just said she wants us dead, Rose! She’s a demon and she wants us dead, she’s not safe to have here!”

Well, Rose could agree with that, and her eerie smile was beginning to make her feel…uncomfortable. She sighed.

“We ask her questions first. You can banish her afterwards, ok?”

Dave slumped under her grip. 

“Fine. But if she does anything, she’s gone.”

Rose nodded, then look over at John and Jade, who also nodded. She let go, and sat back. Aradia look at her, expectantly.

“Right. So, Karkat brought some of our relatives back to life.”

“Oh I know about that! I had to guide them back to your world!”

Rose paused to let that sink in. Jade and John looked over at each other and frowned.

“I’m sorry, what do you mean by guide them back? I thought it was Karkat that brought them back?” Dave asked.

Aradia smiled even harder, and Rose noticed that her pupils were rectangular like a goat.

“Oh he did! His power brought their bodies back and made their souls be called to them, it’s my job to guide them along the way so they don’t get lost!”

“I see.” Dave said. “so you’re a fucking psychopomp.”

“Exactly!”

Rose had heard of demons that lead the spirits of the dead, but after meeting the first few, she hadn’t thought that they were real. You learn something new every day, she   
supposed.

“Would you be able to guide them back?”

It was Jade that asked this time, and polite as she apparently was, Aradia faced whoever was speaking to her, so Rose couldn’t see Aradia’s face when she replied.

“I’m afraid not. To do so would be to kill them again. And by that, I mean that I would literally have to kill them. I can’t leave this circle. Other than that, I can’t pull their souls from their body. I could age them so quickly that they died though, if you would like that?”

John responded immediately. 

“No thanks.”

A quick look at other’s grim expressions showed it was unanimous. The idea of aging the children so quickly they turned to ash made Rose’s stomach turn uneasily, and she didn’t really want to throw up for the second time this week. 

“Yeah, that won’t be necessary.”

Aradia shrugged.

“Then there’s not much I can do I’m afraid. But I’m not sure what you wanted in the first place.”

The four of them exchanged glances. None of these glances were the glances of people who know what they want. 

“We’re not entirely sure ourselves.”

“Then I’m sure you’ll find out soon!”

Rose was sure that her smile was supposed to be reassuring, but she didn’t quite manage to create a sense of calm. Which probably had something to do with the fact that she had been smiling since she arrived, including while saying she wanted to see them dead. 

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Dave said, “do we have any more questions?”

Jade shrugged and John shook his head.

“I think we’re done.”

Dave nodded.

“Ok then. You read to go Aradia?”

“Yep! Say hi to Tavros for me when you see him!”

“I’ll be sure to pass the message along when I work out who the fuck that is. I banish you, Aradia Megido, Maid of Time, The One Who Guides the Dead, from this dimension, return to your home and do not touch any here with your dark powers.”

And then she waved, and her flesh rotted and fell from her bones, which in turn turned to dust which formed a pile that shrank back into the now ironically cartoony sheep shaped keyring.

So, she couldn’t do anything about the children. Rose tried very hard to feel disappointed about this, but thinking about Jane playing piano a few minutes ago, and how competitive Dirk and Roxy were, and how Jake wore Jade’s old clothes, she couldn’t quite bring herself to.


	26. Chapter 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A chill afternoon for our fave kids. I hope y'all enjoy this chapter, comments are appreciated!!

Dave didn’t know how it could be so cold in the mornings and at night, but so hot in the middle of the day during the fall, but he did know that by one o’clock his hoodie was thrown over the back of one of the chairs in the dining room and he was sprawled in another one, a glass of lemonade clutched in his hand. 

Dave wouldn’t say he was bored, but Rose had vanished upstairs to work out who this ‘Tavros’ Aradia mentioned was, and John had run outside to keep an eye on the kids. Jade was still around somewhere, but right now Dave didn’t really have anything to do except watch the bubbles in his lemonade pop and wait for his phone to reach somewhere above 10% charge. 

He sighed and picked his feet up, resting them on the edge of the table. He could wander around the house, but while he knew that there was plenty of interesting stuff there, he also knew that he could get lost very easily and he’d seen most of it before on previous visits to the house. He could go join the kids outside, but his pale as fuck skin didn’t deal too well with long periods of exposure to direct sunlight, even in fall. He also didn’t really know how to feel about the kids. 

He was stuck with them, he knew that now. Aradia couldn’t do anything about them, Karkat couldn’t, the only one left who might was Feferi, and she probably couldn’t either. He wasn’t even sure what he wanted. He didn’t want them dead, fuck no, they didn’t deserve that, they’re fucking kids. But they shouldn’t exist. Rose, Jade, John, they could all provide for them, they had food and plenty of space in their houses and money for clothes and shit, that wasn’t the issue. But these kids could never have ID, they could never go to school, they’d never have friends their own age other than themselves because they couldn’t exist. And even the demons didn’t seem to know what could happen. They might still regain their past memories and then what would happen? Dave didn’t even want to think about it. 

He sighed and sipped his lemonade.

He liked the kids. He did. They were really starting to grow on him. Even Dirk. Because even though he was still…Him, he wasn’t. He didn’t have his memories, he didn’t act like him at all. He was just a ten-year-old kid. 

Ultimately, is was just far too fucking confusing for Dave to get his head around. He wished it had never happened. 

“Hey, get your feet off the table.”

Dave looked up just as Jade got close enough to knock his feet down. 

“Sorry. Nice lemonade btw.”

Jade stared at him as she pulled up a chair.

“Did you actually just say ‘btw’ aloud?”

“Hell yeah, Harley. Gotta be on brand, in with the hip kids with the fresh dank memes and that means I’ve gotta spit those acronyms, much as it pains me.”

Jade grabbed the pitcher of lemonade Dave had left on the table and shook her head as she poured herself a glass.

“I can’t believe I dated you for a whole year.”

“Nor can I, you were way out of my league.”

Jade laughed and drank her lemonade. They’d only really dated because they were the only trans kids around and no one else really understood, but it still was a mistake. Dave drank his lemonade as well, instead of saying that.

“Did you make this?”

“Yup! Don’t ask what’s in it though, that’s a Harley family secret!”

Dave snorted.

“Ah yes, the Harley family and its sole member: you.”

“Hey now, that’s not true. There’s my cousin Jude. And Jake or Jane might choose the last name Harley, you never know.”

Dave always forgot about John and Jade’s cousins. He’d never met them himself, but he knew that after their grandfather broke up with their gran, he’d gone on to have another family, leaving them with a few cousins. Jade had met them a couple of times on her travels, but he didn’t know if John had. If so, he hadn’t mentioned it to Dave. But something more interesting caught his attention. 

“You’re going to let them choose their last names?”

Jade shrugged. “Why not?”

“Don’t they already have last names?”

“Well yeah, but they’re not exactly those people anymore, so I feel like they should get to choose.”

Dave thought about it. He could understand wanting to change names to separate the present from the past. He had seriously considered changing his name to Dave Lalonde for a while after moving in with Rose, to further remove himself from…Texas. But he’d stuck with Strider in the end. If only because he realised that his name didn’t mean anything and changing it wouldn’t change the piece of shit he had for a father and the terrible shit he’d done to him. 

But the kids might want a fresh start.

“I guess it’s only fair.”

Jade nodded, then leant back in her chair, resting her feet on Dave’s legs.

“Wow, rude Harley. I can’t believe that all I am is a footstool to you. I am a good and kind friend to you for years on end, and this is how you repay me. I see how it is. No, it’s ok I deserve this, I’m sure I have done something to earn having your nasty stinky feet all up in my space.”

Jade smirked.

“You’re welcome.”

They stayed there for a while. Most of what was left of the afternoon in fact, finishing up the lemonade and reminiscing on the time they dated and their childhoods. The kids occasionally ran inside, grabbed a drink, explained whatever the fuck they had been doing at Mach speed, then ran back outside, but otherwise they were more or less uninterrupted, and it Dave remember just how much he loved hanging out with Jade. Dating her had been an awkward mistake for both of them, but she was still one of his favourite people in the world and he loved her. 

“Hey Jade?”

She looked up from where she’d been stacking the glasses they’d left next to the lemonade, the ones that hadn’t been used.

“Yeah?”

“Not to sound straight or anything, but you’re the best friend a guy could ask for and I love you.”

She stopped what she was doing completely, and Dave instinctively began to pick at the hem of his t-shirt.

“I love you too, Dave!”

And then before Dave could do anything to stop it, Jade swung her legs off of his lap and wrapped her arms around him in a Harley Hug ™. Ok, if he was honest with himself, he could totally have stopped her if he wanted to. And they both knew that, which meant that the flimsy attempts at having some kind of façade were utterly pointless, but also a habit he couldn’t quite kick. 

“Am I interrupting something?”

They pulled apart, and looked over their shoulders to see Rose standing in the doorway, grimoire in hand, one eyebrow raised.

“Rose! What took you so long? I thought you were just working out who Tavros was.”

“Originally, I was.” Rose walked over to join them, and placed the book on the table in front of them. They turned to follow her as she pulled up a chair. 

“He was pretty easy to find, since Aradia gave us his name, and yeah, he’s the next in the-” She stopped mid-sentence, reaching for the lemonade pitcher.

“Did you seriously not leave any lemonade for me?”

Dave shrugged.

“You snooze, you lose sis, you know how it works. Finish your sentence?”

Rose sighed and visibly sank back into the chair. Dave thought he heard her mutter something along the lines of ‘but I love Jade’s lemonade’ under her breath, but she quickly perked back up.

“Right. He’s the demon we have to summon next. I think we should be able to get him done before we leave here this evening, if that’s ok with you, Jade?”

Jade nodded. 

“Sure, sounds fine to me. We don’t really have the time to do anything else.”

“Yeah. So, I’m not sure I brought what we need for him, but you probably have at least two brown candles lying around somewhere?”

“Brown ones?”

Rose shrugged.

“Brown, orange or gold, all of them should work.”

Jade rubbed at her bottom lip. 

“I’ll go have a look in a bit.”

“Thanks. But yeah, other than that, I was just adding some notes to the grimoire, more information on the demons. And correcting some of it, it wasn’t all exactly accurate.”

Dave didn’t want to imagine what notes she had been adding. Hopefully it was useful things, and not a bunch of purple prose detailing how pretty the space demon was, and how Rose wanted to see how sharp those fangs would feel digging into her lip, and dear god this was a Freudian slip and a half, he was glad he wasn’t saying this aloud.

“While you two sort that shit out, I’m gonna go check out the bathroom, because all of that lemonade has to go somewhere and the only direction on this train is south motherfuckers.”

“We really needed to know that.”

Dave laughed as he left the room.


	27. Chapter 27

The sunset was beautiful, and Dave was enjoying it from one of the balconies of the third floor of the house. He’d eventually caved into the urge to wander around the house, because Jade had reminded him of a certain stuffed wolf head somewhere in the house that he’d found once, and he wanted to see if he remembered where it was. He was planning on scaring the shit out of Rose if he could. But he couldn’t find it, and he didn’t want to get completely and utterly fucking lost, so after a while he gave up and decided to just chill out on the balcony. 

It was beginning to cool off, and in an hour or so he would be glad of the hoodie he’d worn on the way here, but right now the breeze was welcome. He looked out on the forest that the Harley-Egberts considered their fucking garden, and wished he’d been able to spend more time exploring them as a kid. 

As he watched, John appeared, the kids trailing after him, lost in conversation. He waved at them, and they waved back, calling up to him but their words were lost to the wind. He got up and made his way back downstairs, where the others were. They’d migrated into the living room, the girls lounging on the sofas. John and the children had made it inside just before Dave had got down there, and Jake was shoving what looked like an actual god damn deer’s skull towards Jade, talking too loud and too quickly for Dave to process it. 

“Dave!”

He turned to see Dirk rushing towards him, and he just barely resisted the urge to flinch.

“Hey little man!” He noticed the boy had his hands cupped together, “whatcha got there?”

He brought his hands closer to Dave’s face and opened them, revealing a perfectly intact eggshell. 

“Holy shit! That’s so cool!”

Dirk nodded his head. “It’s very fragile.”

Dave nodded back. “You’ve got to be very careful with it. Are you going to keep it in your room?”

“Can I?”

“Totally.”

The corner of his mouth twitched up slightly, and Dave copied him entirely not of his own volition. 

“Hey guys, wanna watch a film?”

John had extricated himself from the discussion that was happening between Jane and Roxy and made his way over to the impressively shit movie collection located on one of the shelves in the room. Honestly, the sheer quantity of low quality movies was award winning. Or at the very least is should be worthy of a few. World’s largest collection of   
absolutely garbage movies. Unfortunately, the children were blissfully unaware of the exact level of shitiness that John’s movies reached, so they ran over and began looking through them, probably hoping to find something good. The poor souls, to put so much time into a hopeless excursion. 

While they were distracted, the girls sat up and slid off of their respective sofas and out of the room, Rose waving at Dave to follow them. He looked over at John, who gave him a quick thumbs-up before returning his attention to the kids, who were slowly pulling all of the cases off the shelves.

He left the room and joined the girls in the hallway, where they’d clearly waited for him.

“John’s going to get the kids settled in with a movie, he’ll come join us in a bit.”

They made their way up the stairs and Jade picked up the conversation.

“I found the candles and set up the circle while you were exploring the house, we’ve literally just got to sit down and we’re ready to go. Which is good because we’ve gotta be quick, the movie will only distract the kids for so long.”

They reached her room and she swung the door open for them, bowing.

“How did John know to distract the kids?”

Rose sat herself down on a cushion she’d set down for herself on the floor then looked at Dave like he was being an idiot. 

“She texted him.”

Right. 

Dave sat down next to her, and Jade opposite him.

She pulled a face at him.

He stuck his tongue out.

“So. Who are we summoning? Tarvos? Davros? Isn’t that a villain from some british tv show?”

“His name is Tavros. The character you’re thinking of is from doctor who.”

“Right. I knew that.”

“Right. Well, this should be pretty easy, the guy is apparently, according to the grimoire, pretty weak.”

At that, John walked in and sat down next to Dave. 

“Ok, are we good to go?”

Rose nodded, and placed the cow-shaped keyring into the centre of the circle. And then she was silent, and Dave looked up, looked at Jade, who shrugged, then looked back over at Rose. Her mouth was moving, eyes shut, clearly saying the incantation silently. 

The second she stopped, he returned his attention to the centre of the circle. The cow did not move. He continued to watch it. The cow continued to not move. A small dust bunny was forming by itself at the edge of the circle. Dave looked at that instead. The cow continued to not move. The dust bunny did move. In fact, it moved very quickly, as if blown by a strong wind, and as Dave watched, all the dust and dirt and other small objects in the circle were slowly blowing themselves around the edge of the circle. Except the cow. The cow continued to not move. The wind got faster, and it slowly became a contained hurricane, whipping around faster and faster, until it shrank in on itself and finally pulled the cow into it, ripping it apart in the process. 

The pieces of the cow pulled themselves together around the hurricane, and into the shape of a humanoid figure with the most ridiculous horns Dave had seen on a demon so far. He was crouching, and Dave waited for him to stand, as most of the others had, but instead he sat, and opened his eyes. 

“Um…hi?”

Wow.

Dave had honestly been expecting better. The other demons had been melodramatic sure but at least they didn’t immediately seem like awkward teenagers. But this demon? His black jumpsuit with brown stripes was certainly impressive, as was his hornspan, but that was about it. 

Well at least it was refreshing, he supposed. Although he had been somewhat hoping for something more interesting.

“Hi Tavros. My name is Rose. Aradia told us to say hi.”

Tavros smiled at the mention of the other troll, and his teeth were sharp but they still failed to make him look intimidating.

“Hello Rose! Karkat said you were summoning all 12 of us, is that uh true?”

“It is indeed. If we don’t it will be the end of the world.”

“Well that is quite an incentive, hey?”

“Quite.”

And then there was silence. A painfully fucking awkward silence. Because with the other demons, they’d either had questions to ask them or they hadn’t planned to summon them at all, which made for interesting enough conversation. This was the first-time things had gone one hundred percent to the fucking plan and they didn’t know what to do.

Which was fucking hilarious, if you asked Dave. He started laughing.

That just about summed up their lives, didn’t it? 

“Dave, are you ok?”

He tried to stop laughing, then failed, then tried again. 

“Yeah, I’m fine. Sorry Tavros, we’re generally more interesting when things don’t go right.”

“Dave.”

Rose was pulling her disappointed face. Fuck that face.

“What? It’s true. Look at us! Things go as planned and we don’t know what to talk about! What would we do without chaos eh? Hey Tavros, can you fuck something up? Please? Come on, give us something to do.”

The demon scratched at the bac of his head and looked painfully fucking uncomfortable.

“Well, I don’t really fuck things up. That’s more what Karkat, Terezi and Vriska and everyone else do. I can spit some sick rhymes if you want though?"

Dave clapped his hands together.

“Hell. Fucking. Yes. Rap battle with a demon, let’s go!”

“Oh right ok. Um. I heard you humans spit some pretty sick fires, but my rhymes are realer than Gamzee’s messiahs. I know you don’t know who Gamzee is, but trust me my raps are the shizz. Um. Dave, are you ok?”

He could actually feel tears forming in the corners of his eyes. Was this guy for real? He waved away the concern, straightened up, ironed the expression out of his face. 

“John?”

John looked like he trying hard not to laugh himself.

“Yeah?”

“Gimme a beat.”

John bit his lip to compose himself and began beatboxing. Rose laughed quietly at his side, and he knew that even Rose could utterly roast Tavros if she tried. Her rhymes might be a little more flowery than Dave’s but damn they got the job done. But speaking of jobs to do. Dave locked eyes with Tavros, who visibly shrank back. 

“That’s the hottest fire a demon can spit? Well hotter than hell is cold as shit, management there will pitch a fit when they see how hard my rhymes can hit. Tavros Nitram, world’s worst demon, got his ass schooled by human children, he’ll go back to hell in a wooden vest when I hit him with my god damned best. Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee you wish you were as good as me, I’m fucking gold and you’re just lead, honestly kid go back to bed, your horn too big for your goddamn head.”

And with that, Dave dropped his mike and the crowd went wild. At least, that’s what happened in his head, in reality, Jade and John laughed and Rose clapped. Tavros slumped his shoulders.

“Can you just send me back to Alternia now?”

“Sure thing.”

He looked at the girls, expecting on of them to take over, but they were looking at John. He cleared his throat.

“I’ve got this. I banish you, Tavros Nitram, Page of Breath, the one who changes the breeze, from this dimension, return to your home and do not touch any here with your dark powers.”

Tavros sighed, and the air just continued to flow out of him, deflating him. He continued to get smaller until he was once again the cow keyring.

John reached into the circle and picked it up, tossed it into the air and caught it again.

“I just wanted to do that at least once.”

Dave thought that was fair enough. They quickly blew out the candles and packed everything up. John tucked the keyring into his pocket and Jade pulled a rug over the circle, promising to wipe it off later, and then they went downstairs and joined the children for what was left of the movie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologise if the raps are shit. I did not do Dave justice. But I hope you enjoyed this none the less!


	28. Chapter 28

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for the compliments from last chapter, they mean a lot. That being said, I hope you enjoy this one! :)

Rose woke up a little after 9 and for once didn’t feel a pressing need to get out of bed. It was cool in her room, but under her covers it was comfortably warm. It was peacefully quiet, and she had nothing to do today.

In fact, she almost felt like going straight back to sleep. She rolled over onto her side, pulled her covers closer to her, closed her eyes and decided to relax.

“SHIT!” 

Rose sat back up again. Of course she couldn’t have a nice lazy morning in bed, of course not. She threw back her covers and began to make her way to the source of the noise.  
It was definitely Dave, and she hoped that whatever it was that had made him swear that loud was worth her getting out of bed. Or at least that she hadn’t gotten up just because he’d lost a video game. 

She pushed open the living room door to total darkness. When her eyes adjusted, the scene before her was not what she expected. At all.

In the centre of the room Dave was sprawled out on the floor, with Dirk and Roxy kneeling next to him, apparently trying to help him up. His shades were on the ground next to him. Rose watched as he got his arm around Roxy’s shoulder and climbed to his feet, Dirk quickly grabbing the glasses before Dave could step on them. 

“Here.”

“Thanks, little man.”

Dave let go of Roxy and slid the glasses onto his face, turning to face Rose in the process.

“Oh. Hey, didn’t mean to wake you.”

Rose sighed and pressed her hand against her face. Maybe if she stayed like that long enough she’d calm down. Probably not.

“Why exactly did you feel the need to shout loud enough to wake the whole street and then lie on the floor?”

Dave opened his mouth to respond, but before he could, Roxy interrupted him.

“He fell.”

Rose felt her eyebrow raise. She was about to ask ‘from where’ when she noticed the step ladder next to them. She looked at Dave and tilted her head to the side. What on earth had he been doing?

Dave pointed upwards. “Lightbulb broke.”

Ah. 

“You fell off the step ladder?”

“Yeah. Not my proudest moment.”

She shook her head. He probably hadn’t even managed to remove the bulb.

No, no he had not. 

Rose walked over to the step ladder, and the others moved out of her way. She could just replace the bulb then go back to bed, she thought, ascending. Until Jade and John came around that is. They had another demon to summon. And then find some way to occupy their day until they had to summon another one.

She began turning the bulb to the right. They could maybe go to the park. No one goes to the park on Sundays. Right? Who the fuck goes to the park on a Sunday? No one they know, that’s for sure.

Rose then realised that the bulb unscrewed the other way and did that. It would be good for the kids to get out of the house and have some semblance of a normal life. Even though their lives were so far from normal.

The bulb came loose in her hand, and she climbed back down the ladder. Roxy and Dirk were having a quiet conversation that Rose wasn’t interested in listening to and Dave dismantled the ladder the second she stepped off of it.

He followed her to the kitchen with it while she attempted to find a replacement. It was odd that the fuse had blown so soon, they’d replaced it just a couple of weeks ago. She held it up to her eyeline so she could see it properly. 

And then frowned.

The bulb appeared to be perfect. 

Meaning it hadn’t been the bulb blowing, but something much more dangerous.

“Uhhh Dave?”

He looked over from where he was fighting the losing battle of shoving the ladder into the closet. 

“Yeah?”

“Take a look at this.”

Dave took a look at it.

“Shit.”

“Yeah.”

“When are John and Jade getting here again?”

Rose quickly checked the wall clock. 

“Five minutes.”

“Not soon enough.”

“Yeah. I’ll go set shit up, you distract the kids and text Jade.”

Dave nodded and left the room. Rose placed the dead lightbulb on the nearest counter and followed him out, before quickly changing course and heading up to her room.

She picked the grimoire up off of the floor and dropped it onto her bed, then snatched up the nearest clothes she could find. Stripping out of her nightdress she flipped the book open to what was close to the right section. The bulb had blown, removing their only light source, so surely it had to be the light demon. She flipped through it, attempting to find the right page while pulling on her clothes. She had just gotten her jeans zipped when she found it. Vriska Serket, Thief of Light, The One Who Has All The Luck. 

That had to be the right one. 

It was the demon that Tavros named as well. One of them. 

She picked the book up just as she heard the doorbell ring. For once a wave of relief flooded through her at the sound of all-star. They were early. Thank the gods. 

Pausing only to grab a stick of chalk and the spider keyring, Rose sprinted her way up to the observatory. 

They really should have been more careful. They should have summoned Tavros later in the day. Or maybe Rose should have gotten up earlier. Either way, this probably could have been avoided. Should have been, because they couldn’t risk the kids seeing anything like this. This had been a close call, one they could brush off as a natural occurrence, but if they’d been around when shit was turning into ash? It could have been disastrous for everyone. 

Rose could hear the others coming up the stairs as she quickly drew a circle on the ground in front of her and placed the keyring in the centre. It wasn’t the best, but it should work. She then took a moment to steady herself and breathe. The last two summonings went smoothly. There’s no reason why this one shouldn’t. She closed her eyes and held her hands in her lap. 

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

The door opened behind her, and she turned as the other three walked into the room. 

“Hey Rose!”

“Hi. Sorry for the rush.”

John smiled, and without prompting sat across from her, and Dave and Jade sat at her sides. 

“It’s alright. Let’s get this show on the road, shall we?”

Rose nodded. 

Breathe in. 

Breathe out.

No need to rush. 

Other than the potential collapse of the universe.

“I call upon the guardians of the four watch towers to watch over us and protect us in this ritual. May you grant us wisdom, creativity, strength and courage. I call upon the god and goddess and ask for them to be present in this circle and guide us from harm.”

Rose let herself find comfort in the words, in the familiarity of them, before adding the last part.

“I call upon the ancient beings of Alternia and grant them entrance to this realm, may you join us in this circle.”

And the second the words left her mouth, the room went dark. And it was utter pitch darkness. 

She heard Jade gasp to her left, and Dave swear quietly to her right. 

This was…new. And probably bad. Generally, the demons’ effects were confined to the circle. Which meant…

Oh no.

Suddenly, there was a bright flash of light in the centre of the circle, so bright that they collectively recoiled and covered their eyes. 

When Rose lowered her hands, she saw a demon standing there wearing a long black coat and a wickedly sharp grin.

“My oh my, Rose, this certainly is a shabby circle. Fussyfangs said so many great things about you I was sure you were something, but this? This is pathetic. It’s not even doing anything, watch this!”

And before anyone could even think to react, Vriska leapt out of the circle, towards John knocking him backwards. And then she was gone. 

They were left in dark and silence for a moment.

Then John sat up and began to laugh a laugh that certainly wasn’t his. It didn’t even sound human.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :))))


	29. Chapter 29

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is presented without comment, other than this question:   
> Should I update the tags to include demon possession? Probably. (this is not a rhetorical question, please tell me if you think i should leave some kind of warning, and possibly go back and edit the last chapter so it includes one)

It was dark. 

Darker than was usually possible.

Probably? John wasn’t sure how dark it was possible to be.

Either way, he couldn’t see much.

He couldn’t feel much either. 

Or hear. 

Or even smell. 

He had caught a bit of a cold recently, so hadn’t been able to smell, but it wasn’t like that. 

There was just. 

Nothing.

But he wasn’t dead. Well, he was pretty sure he wasn’t dead. He seemed far too…alive and existing to be dead. 

So that was a plus. 

Even if he didn’t know where he was. 

The last thing he could remember was being in the observatory with Jade, Dave and Rose. They’d had to rush over there, Jade had almost got them a speeding ticket, he could remember his heart beating like it was trying to get a speeding ticket as well. 

Could John feel his heart beat right now?

He focused on it. 

Nothing…nothing…nothing…there!

Very faint, but there. 

So, he was alive…just…distant.

Why?

Right, they were in the observatory, summoning another demon. Rose had looked pretty rushed, he hoped she was ok. She’d seemed so stressed lately. Everyone had seemed to stressed and upset lately, and John supposed that he had been a little too. It was nerve wracking knowing that if they made a huge mistake then they could hurt a lot of people, of course he was a little stressed. But honestly, he was enjoying it. 

Mostly.

They’d summoned…Vriska? Was that her name?

“Wow, finally worked it out did you?”

What?

“Jegus, you think so loud, can you tone it down just a little bit, I’m trying to do something.”

Who was that, how was he hearing them, where were they, what?

“Uuuuugh. Can’t you figure it out? You summoned a demon with a broken protective circle, can’t you put two and two together?”

What the hell was going on, who was this, where was he, what was going on, why couldn’t he hear, wh couldntheseewhycouldn’t he feel-

“Gog, calm down. I’m Vriska, the demon, at your service. And by at your service, I really mean you’re at my service. I’ve decided to take your body for a spin.”

She what?

“I can hear all of your thoughts, please catch up. You’re possessed.”

Oh. 

That made a lot of sense. 

“There we go.”

They’d summoned Vriska, a pretty blue-

“Thanks!”

-demon girl, who had then yelled at Rose and…

Oh

Launched herself at him.

“And here we are now, welcome back to the present.”

Here….where was here?

“We’re inside your head, duh.”

Inside his…why couldn’t he see?

“Oh my goooooooog this conversation is tiring when you don’t even bother to separate your thoughts from actual questions. Here, let me just-”

And then they were in his living room. 

Or rather, a perfect memory replica of it, if his movie knowledge served him correctly. He was sat on the left side of the couch, and as he looked around the room, it was a little blurry in places. Until he focused on it, then it was exactly how he remembered it. Because this was a memory. 

Sort of.

Only sort of because sitting on the other end of the couch was Vriska.

“Hi.”

John tried opening his mouth and was surprised to find he could.

“Hey.”

He glanced down, and he had a body as well, which he was pretty sure he didn’t have earlier. This was like a very strange dream, and honestly at this point he wasn’t convinced that he wasn’t still asleep. 

“This is much nicer, isn’t it?”

“I guess?”

Vriska sighed. This probably wasn’t a dream Vriska as she wasn’t wearing the clothes she’d appeared in earlier. What she was wearing now was bright orange. He wondered what determined what she was wearing, or if she chose it, or if it was literally a physical outfit she could put on. Did demons need to wear clothes like humans?

“Bluh, I can still hear all of your thoughts, can you please stop thinking about my wardrobe.”

“Sorry.”

“You’re forgiven. So, this is your house?”

Vriska picked up one of the sofa cushions and plucked at the tassles.

“Uh yeah, a memory of it.”

“No shit. It’s nice.”

“Do you have houses back in hell?”

Vriska dropped the cushion.

“It’s not hell, technically. I mean. We don’t call it hell, humans have called it that for millennia though. We call it Alternia.”

“Ooh cool. Do you have houses in Alternia?”

“We call them hives, but yeah. And mine’s pretty sick, way way way waaaaaaaay better than yours. But yours is still pretty neat.”

“Nice. So uh…why are you possessing me?”

Vriska got up and walked over to the fireplace.

“So that you humans learn to protect your shit!”

“What do you mean?”

Vriska rolled her eyes.

“I can’t fucking believe I have to explain this.”

Before John could protest, she picked up one of the statuettes that was on the mantle piece and sat down on the floor.

“What I mean is that if you have a nice working functioning circle like this,” She put the statuette down and drew around it with her finger, a trail of light following it. The line glowed brighter when it connected with itself to form a circle, “then the demon can’t get out.” She reached into the circle and pushed the statuette into the line, where it caught on fire.

“Hey!”

Vriska looked up and glared at him. With a click of her fingers she put out the fire. Which, he had to admit, was pretty cool. 

“Anyway, if you don’t draw the circle correctly, or you break it, like this,” she dragged her finger through the line, and the light dimmed considerably, ‘then two things can happen. Number one, the demon’s power can get out, which you’ve seen. I still can’t fucking believe that you let something like that happen and then DID IT AGAIN. Stupid humans, you never learn.”

She must be talking about what happened between Rose and Terezi.

“Bingo genius. And number two, the demon themselves can get out.” 

To emphasise her point, she pushed the statuette out of the circle, then picked it up.

“Ok but that doesn’t really answer my question.”

Vriska groaned and then faster than John could process the statuette was colliding with his forehead.

“Because you idiots don’t know what you’re doing! I bet you didn’t even realise you have demonic powers now!”

John blinked and rubbed at the spot on his head.

“I what?”

Instantly, Vriska was sat right next to him and she hit his head with every word for emphasis.

“You. Have. Demonic. Powers!”

John slapped her hands away and she sat back.

“How?”

“Every time you banish a demon, you take a little biit of their essence. Well no, not every time. The first two times you do it. Don’t ask me why, I don’t know, that’s weird science/magic bullshit that I don’t know anything about, but basically you get two slots and you’ve filled one of yours with that pathetic runt and you don’t even know. You can’t even use it yet, because humans are pathetic as well.”

What the fuck was she talking about.

“I CAN HEAR YOUR THOUGHTS, JUST SAY IT OUT LOUD, IT MAKES NO DIFFERENCE!! GOG!”

“What the fuck are you talking about?!”

She grinned and John realised a second later that he’d yelled at her. 

“I’m talking about this.”

She pointed at the mirror on the wall and he looked at it.

And gasped.

What the fuck?

Through the mirror he could see the world around him. He could see Rose directly in front of him, and Jade and Dave as well. And they were covering their eyes and their clothes and hair were whipping around them because…

John was standing in the middle of a hurricane.

“What are you doing?”

Vriska appeared next to the mirror.

“I’m teaching you a lesson. Two lessons at once actually, because I’m just that nice.”

“Have you been attacking them the whole time I was talking to you?”

“I have to many irons on the fire, John, keep up.”

“Stop attacking them. Please, you’re hurting them, you’ve taught them what more do you want?”

“Hmmm, you’re right. Except they could stand a little more education.”

And John felt his stomach sink. Metaphorically, he could barely feel his actual stomach with the way Vriska was controlling his body right now. He couldn’t really do anything. Meaning that he couldn’t do anything to stop her.

He watched helplessly as his friends were buffeted by vicious winds, and stared as Rose stood up.

What was she doing?

“Wait!”

He could hear her yell through the mirror, and Vriska cocked her head.

“If she can still stand then I need to turn it up a bit.”

She raised her arms, but Rose spoke again.

“Stop possessing John. Take me.”

Vriska froze. She lowered her arms. And although John couldn’t see for sure, he thought she smiled.

Vriska tapped the mirror, and the scene changed. It was still the observatory, still from John’s perspective, and he was still looking at Rose. Only, Terezi was there, kneeling in front of her, talking to her. This was another memory. John watched the scene play out again, and this time he noticed a small puff of air flow towards Rose when she banished Terezi. 

“So you’re the one that banished Terezi? Oh this could be so much fun.”

“What could be?”

Vriska jumped a little, almost as if she’d forgotten John was there, but she composed herself.

“Sorry John, you’re cute and all, but this is an opportunity I can’t pass up.”

And with that, Vriska jumped through the mirror.


	30. Chapter 30

The hurricane died down and for a second, Rose felt relief. Her hair fell back in front of her face, and she lowered her hands and watched as John fell to the floor.   
Jade and Dave rushed towards him, and Rose moved to do so too, but caught herself. There was something more important to do first. She closed her eyes.

“I banish you, Vriska Serket, Thief of Light, The One Who Has All The Luck, from this dimension, return to your home and do not touch any here with your dark powers.”

When she finished, John jerked forwards, hunching over himself, nearly pulling out of Dave’s grasp. He started coughing and retching and Rose thought he was going to throw up, but instead a metal object shot out of his mouth and clattered onto the floor. 

Rose approached it, and knelt down next to it. 

It was the spider keyring.

She picked it up and put it in her pocket.

“Well that was gross.”

“No kidding,” Jade agreed “So what now?”

John sat up and shrugged Jade and Dave off of him.

“I don’t know about you guys, but I could really do with a glass of water.”

…  
“So, when is Jade getting back?”

Rose glanced over at the clock. As soon as they were done, Jade had taken the kids down to the park so that John could tell them what the fuck had just happened without the risk of the kids walking in on them. It was now midday and John hadn’t even told them, and the longer it took for him to spit it out, the more anxious Rose became. She kept exchanging glances with Dave, who looked just as concerned. 

“She said she was going to try to give us a couple of hours. She’ll probably be back soon.”

“John, are you okay bro? You’ve barely said anything. What happened back there?”

John tapped his empty glass against the table, like he had been doing almost continually for the last hour. 

“Vriska possessed you, we saw that. How was she doing that, I thought she was the Light demon?”

“She is.”

Rose frowned. 

“Then how-”

“Through me.”

What? 

A quick look at Dave told her he was just as confused as she was. She tried not to let her panic show in her face. Dave would probably be able to tell, but she could lie to herself and pretend that John would be fooled.

“What do you mean?”

John sighed and took his glasses off. He played with the left arm, which had been bent out of shape when he hit the floor. They’d offered him their first aid kit, worried he’d been concussed when he collided with the ground, but he insisted he was fine. Dave had given him a look over anyway, and reached the same conclusion. 

“Remember back when we summoned Tavros?”

“You mean yesterday?”

John blinked. 

“Huh, yeah guess I do. Gosh, time goes so slowly. Yeah, yesterday. And I banished him, right?”

“Yeah.”

As John spoke, Rose could feel the puzzle pieces falling together in her head, but she didn’t like the image they were forming. 

“Well, when I was...when Vriska was in my head, she explained to me-”

“Wait, you spoke to her?” Dave interrupted.

“Yeah, for the most part she wasn’t that bad.”

“Dude, she was attacking us the whole time.”

“Yeah…well she said she was trying to help us.”

“How exactly is blasting us with gale force winds helping us? Please explain this to me.”

“I will if you stop interrupting me! God!”

Rose and Dave shut up and sat back in their chairs. John shook his head and put his glasses back on. They slid half an inch down his nose immediately. 

“Vriska explained to me that when you banish a demon, you get some of their powers, but you can only access them when you’ve banished two.”

Yea, Rose didn’t like this image at all. It looked, quite frankly, terrifying, and Rose would like a different one, please and thank you. 

“So what you’re saying is that you’ve got crazy wind powers in you and while you can’t use them, a crazy demon bitch can possess you and hijack them?”

“Basically. But you and Rose have both banished two demons, right?”

She thought about it for a second. Dave had banished Karkat and Aradia, while Rose had banished Terezi. And Vriska, just now.

“Yeah, we have. So you’re saying that we should be able to use demonic powers now?”

John shrugged.

“I guess? That’s what Vriska said, and you saw what she did. She could have been lying for all I know. I don’t know how you’ll find out. Have you felt any different?” 

Rose looked at Dave, who shrugged. She had to admit, she hadn’t felt any different either.

“Not that we’ve noticed.”

“Well then I guess she was lying to distract me.”

While Rose hoped that to be true, it still didn’t explain how Vriska had created that hurricane, being a demon of light. Unless she was somehow a demon of both? 

She shook her head. There were too many possibilities. 

“I guess we’ll just have to work it out later. It doesn’t really change what we have to do. Vriska wasn’t the right demon, so we have to start over.”

“Who was the right demon then? You were so convinced that it was her, what with the broken lightbulb.”

It sounded so stupid when he said it like that. 

“Well the lightbulb breaking was definitely supernatural, because it wasn’t actually broken. But I suppose that it could have been another demon. There was one of doom, I suppose he could have done that. Or one of void. Either works.”

“Right,” John said, “we can just look it up later, or ask the other demons. Maybe they’ll be able to say whether it’s true or not.”

“I suppose we could.”

Before Rose could linger on that line of thought, she caught the sound of the key scraping in the lock, and then a second later, Jade and the kids were in the house.

“We’re back!”

Roxy and Jake were first in the room, panting and out of breath, as they ran up to Dave.

“Dave!! We saw…hang on…”

Jake held up his hand as he bent over, gasping. Roxy took over.

“There was this crow! And she tried to steal Jake’s fries!”

Rose glanced over at Jade, who had walked into the room after them, with Jane and Dirk behind her, whispering to each other.

“You bought them fries? It’s almost lunch time.”

Jade shrugged.

“They were hungry.”

She couldn’t begrudge her that.

“Are you guys going to want lunch?”

Jane and Dirk shook their heads.

“Nah we’re good, also Jane and I are gonna go up to my room, if that’s ok?”

“Sure thing little dude, Roxy, tell me more about this crow.”

Jane and Dirk disappeared, leaving Rose to wonder what they were talking about. They’d tell her if it was anything she needed to know. Probably. She could ask them about it later if she really needed to.

“Ok, so Jade bought us fries, because we were really hungry, and I’m still really hungry-”

“Yeah, I’m starving, please can we have some lunch?”

Rose got up and started walking to the kitchen.

“Sure, what do you guys want?”

“A sandwich? And some chips? And cookies? And a drink?”

Roxy nodded along emphatically as Jake spoke.

“Jade, what were you guys doing that wore them out so much?”

Jade shrugged and sat down next to John. 

“I don’t know Rose, I just don’t know. I didn’t even take them on a hike. Would you guys like that?”

The kids shuddered and shook their heads, making the adults laugh. John got up and grabbed his glass, then walked towards Rose, who was still in the doorway. 

“Want me to make them lunch, you could go read up on…y’know?”

She considered it.

“I can read up on them later, thank you for the offer though. Are you doing ok?”

He smiled slightly.

“I’ll be fine. I think I’m going to head home though. Tell Jade and the kids that I’m sorry.”

“Are you taking the car?”

“Nah, I’m gonna walk. I want a bit of time to think.”

“Ok. I’ll take your glass out.”

He handed it over to her, then pulled his coat and shoes on and left the house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes at the end because this is going to be long lmao. I'm so sorry to have left this on a cliffhanger for literally a month without any warning, I have been very busy. I hope that this chapter makes up for it, and I'll be back to updating regularly from now on. And I'll try to remember to say before I go on a hiatus like this again lmao. That being said, I hope you enjoyed this chapter, comments are appreciated, as always, and f any of you want to hit me up on tumblr, I'm futureshieldmaiden there as well!


	31. Chapter 31

It was strange for the house to be this quiet. Over the week or so (eight days) it was common for there to be as many as eight people in it at once, and while there was more than enough room for that, it definitely filled it with noise. Dave had gotten used to the sound of Roxy and Dirk screaming about a game, or telling stories. And obviously Rose was around, making the same Rose noises she always did. John and Jade were there almost every day, with their loud laugher, and Jane and Jake as well. He rather liked it. Knowing where everyone was just by listening. Not that he’d tell them. It was a rather weird thing to admit aloud. 

But if he said it aloud now, no one would be there to hear it. Jade had taken Jane and Jake home hours ago, and Roxy and Dirk had gone to bed not long after that (23 minutes). He’d spoken with Rose for a bit (1 hour), wondering what exactly Jade had done with the kids to make them so tired. Rose speculated that she’d run laps with them around the park. He was more inclined to playing a game that was a cross between frisbee and fetch with Bec. Then Rose had gone off to her room, telling him to summon Karkat, she was going to study. Which could mean a whole variety of thigs from doing actual university work or attempting to meld her brain with a book on demonology. Probably somewhere between the two.

Which left Dave where he was now. Alone in the house.

No, not completely alone. Rose, Roxy and Dirk were still there, just asleep. The kids had been asleep for hours (two exactly), and he’d stuck his head around Rose’s door a few minutes ago (7 minutes) to find her passed out at her desk. He’d pulled a blanket over her then left. 

It had been pitch black outside for a good while now, and Dave was sitting in the centre of his room, mentally preparing to summon a demon. 

He could go up to the observatory, but he didn’t see much reason to leave his room. He knew he could summon Karat without all the bells and whistles Rose insisted upon, so what was the fucking point? He just cleared a space in the middle of the floor, shoving a shit ton of wires and other random crap aside and then lifted up his rug. This was the one and only time he was thankful for the hard wood flooring in his room. Every other time it was a fucking menace. Oh, what he would give for some thick carpet in the dead of winter so his feet didn’t turn into fucking icicles. Rose’s aesthetic could go fuck itself, he just wanted some warmth. The rug wasn’t much help either. 

Right now though, he put it aside and used one of his professional art charcoals that he got for some birthday or other and drew a circle on the floor. It wasn’t the neatest, not perfectly round or anything, but he made sure as shit it didn’t have any fucking holes in. They’d made that mistake too many fucking times, he was not doing it again. Karkat may not have shown any desire to hurt him but he certainly wasn’t gonna fucking risk it. Even if he seemed a bit pathetic. All bark and no bite it seemed. But, it could all be a cunning ploy. Lure them in, give them a false sense of security, then possess them and wreck their shit. So, he was gonna keep the fucking circle.

He reached into his pocket to grab his keys before remembering that his keys were in fact on his desk, so made a very stupid looking manoeuvre to grab them. Failed. Tried again. Succeeded. Then he pulled off the little crab and chucked it into the middle of the circle.

“I call upon- Do I even have to do this bit? How much of what Rose says is actually necessary and how much of it is for show? Like, we get it Lalonde, you love your showmanship, you like being fancy and extra, but is it even important? Does it set up extra protection? Does it open up the gate to the other world? The keyrings are already linked to the demons, at least this one fucking is, so do I have to do that shit? Karkat, get up, it’s time for a chat. Don’t you love our little chats? Get out of the fucking keyring.”

Dave stared at it for a while, and it didn’t seem to do anything. It continued to not do anything for so long that Dave was starting to think he’d actually have to say the whole chant again. Which is to say, three seconds but it felt longer. 

Then the keyring did its usual weird melting thing. It was strange to look at. Almost like one of those oddly calming videos on the internet of those wax flowers or whatever melting except instead of a flower it was a little red crab, instead of wax it was metal, and instead of just melting, it formed a grumpy looking demon teenager.

“Are you fucking serious?”

Dave grinned.

“Hi Karkat, it’s so good to see you, how are you doing?”

Karkat looked around at the room with an expression of absolute disgust on his face. 

“No, seriously, are you kidding me? Is this your fucking respiteblock? Did you literally summon a demon in your own respiteblock with only a shitty circle as your protection?”

“If that’s a weird demon way of saying bedroom then yup.”

Karkat slapped both of his hands against his face. Dave wondered if that was a gesture that he’d picked up from stupid human over the years, or if it was a demon gesture that humans had picked up. Oh shit, what if it was something humans picked up from Karkat himself. The would make him pretty old though, and Dave had no idea how old he was. Or, what if both demons and humans had both come up with the same gesture for the same emotion completely separately.

In the time it had taken Dave to wonder this (all of 1 second) Karkat had dragged his hands back down. 

“This is the dumbest fucking thing I’ve heard of. The graveyard was pretty bad, but at least it was fucking atmospheric. And at least you did the protection ritual beforehand. Are you damaged in the thinkpan?”

Dave leant back against his desk.

“Oh, so that little ritual does serve a purpose. Good to know. Also, you thought the graveyard was atmospheric?”

“Gog, you are damaged in the thinkpan.”

“Hell yeah, man. I thought I already gave to the deluxe tour of the old Strider brain, did you forget that homie?”

Karkat deflated slightly at that, which sucked. Dave had been enjoying what was going on so far, why did he have to go and ruin it. He shouldn’t just casually bring shit up like that.

“Right. How are you dealing with that by the way? Having Dirk around?”

Karkat had attempted shades to eye contact with that last sentence and holy shit where to even start with that sentence, he felt his throat close up a little.

“Um, yeah it’s been pretty ok now that I know he’s not gonna suddenly flip over into a child abusing, sword wielding maniac. At least I’m pretty sure he’s not. He’s not, right?”

“No, he’s not.”

Dave paused.

“Why do you sound so sure? You couldn’t give me a straight answer before. Are you fucking with me? Have you been fucking me around this whole time, getting off on how on edge I felt all the fucking time, because if you have been then let me fucking tell you-”

Karkat interrupted him before his monolgue could pick up proper speed, which was probably good for all of them.

“No, I haven’t been fucking with you, I just did some research recently.”

Well, this guy sure loved saying the last thing Dave would ever expect.

“Research? And you remembered Dirk’s name. Aww Karkat, you may pretend to be a ferocious beast but you really do care.”

If he was completely honest, Dave was a little confused about what was going on. He hoped that it was because Karkat cared, but also, he couldn’t see any reason why he would. To be quite fucking honest, he was way out of his depth here.

And yet he didn’t quite feel as scared as the situation warranted.

“Yes research. And yes, I remembered your human lusus’s name. I just…I wanted to know what happens.”

That didn’t feel completely honest, but he didn’t want to push it. Not yet. 

“So what research was that?”

“Well, I spoke to some other blood demons-”

“There are other blood demons?”

Karkat groaned, and Dave almost felt bad for interrupting him. Almost.

“Yes, Dave, there are other blood demons, and other space demons, and other light demons. There are a shit ton of fucking demons Dave, ok?”

He raised his hands placatingly.

“Ok, ok, please carry on. Tell me more about this research.”

“Right, so the other blood demon said that the only way they could get their memories back was either through a mind demon or a life demon fucking with them, our powers don’t really do that.”

A thought hit Dave like a ball of wool to the back of the head. Quickly and painfully.

“Oh yeah! What do your powers even do and also is there a chance that I have demon powers now?”

Karkat stopped and stared at him.

“What the fuck, why would you think that?”

Dave shrugged awkwardly. Partly because he was leaning against a desk, mostly because he was feeling pretty damn awkward.

“Vriska told John that we do.”

Karkat’s eyebrows pulled into a glare. It would probably be intimidating if his fangs were sharp, or his horns, or if in general he didn’t look like a soft puppy or something equally adorable. 

Ahem, anyway.

“You were talking to Vriska?”

“Not me man!” He wasn’t sure why he felt so defensive about that, but he did. “She looked like a fucking maniac to me, possessed John and started whipping up hurricanes, I’d rather avoid her completely.”

Karkat’s eyebrows raised. They were like little caterpillars. Dave wondered if his hair was thicker than human hair. He should also probably stop staring at his eyebrows but, fuck it, he couldn’t exactly see where he was looking with the shades. Dave was an expert at approximating eye contact.

“Vriska doesn’t have wind powers. She’s a light demon.”

“That’s what I was saying man! Ow!” Dave clutched his wrist. He’d flung his arms out in exasperation and hit the side of the chair. 

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Anyway, like I was trying to fucking say, I’m not talking to that bitch, but she told John that when we banished a demon we gained some of their powers, and we only have room for two, and when we have banished two, we can use them.”

“Huh.”

And then Karkat stared off into the distance for what felt like a lifetime (in reality it was only 16 seconds) and Dave got up and say down on his bed, because there he didn’t have a desk digging into his spine or a chair just begging to run itself into his innocent wrists, and he needed his wrists to draw shitty comics, god damn it.

“Ok, so here’s what I’m thinking-”

“Lay it on me man, give me all the deets.”

Karkat scowled. Or was it glowered. He’d have to describe the expression to Rose to get the exact verb. Either way, he didn’t look impressed.

“I was about to ‘lay it on you’ when you interrupted, bulgelicker.”

Dave laughed. He really said some ridiculous things. 

“Anyway. So I’m thinking that one of the demons you banish passes on their class, and the other their aspect.”

Dave raised his hand like a student in class, and Karat gave him a tired look which he took to mean it was ok to ask his question. It probably wasn’t what he meant by that look, but Dave didn’t give a shit.

“I outclass all of you demon assholes, so how do I give theirs back?”

“That isn’t what class means!”

He looked like he wanted to throw something at Dave, and he was very glad that he’d been very careful to clear the area of the circle. 

“Class is the way that a demon interacts with their element. Aspect is the element.”

“I see.” Dave nodded along sagely. In reality, he understood the concepts Karkat was speaking of only abstractly. 

“So, when John banished Tavros, he must have taken on his aspect. He’ll have to banish someone else to be able to use it-”

“Because he has no class, got it.”

“Exactly! And you’ve banished two demons, right? Me and Aradia?”

Dave nodded. “Yeah, do you talk to her much?”

“No, not much. We’re not exactly close. But she thought it very important to tell me she was banished by you, fuck knows why. So yeah, you would theoretically either be a Maid of Blood, or a Knight of Time.”

Dave picked up a cushion and span it around in his hands. 

“Well I don’t exactly feel very knightly. Nor do I feel like cleaning up after anyone. So, the theory is bogus, good job team, time to go home.”

“Not yet.”

Dave considered the pros and cons of throwing the cushion at Karkat.

“Why not?”

He tried not to drag it out like a petulant child, really he did, But if he was being honest, he didn't try that hard.

“Have you felt any connection to Time or Blood recently?”

He wondered if it was possible for Karkat to put words together in a way that actually made some kind of sense, rather than a jumbled-up pile of syllables parading around, pretending to make sense but actually being a pile of festering garbage.

“Well, I’m pretty attached to my blood, because it is in my body.”

Karkat groaned.

“That’s not what I fucking meant and you know it. I meant have you felt more, I don’t know, in tune with either of them than usual? More in control of them?”

Apparently, nothing this guy said made sense, good to know.

“No, I don’t feel more in control of blood or time. This has been an utterly useless conversation.”

Karkat sighed, slouching forwards at the same time.

“Great, glad to know that my research on whether your fucking awful lusus would return isn’t appreciated. Why would I ever think that anything I do would be useful to anyone? What a thing to fucking hope for.”

Shit.

“Hey man. I didn’t mean that bit, I appreciate it. Really. Thanks.”

Karkat looked at him, and made actual eye contact, not that he actually knew. It didn’t last long (0.6 seconds) but it happened.

“You’re welcome. Now banish me, then get some sleep or whatever, I’m not your lusus. Waste your fucking life for all the shits I give.”

Dave smiled. And then tried not to be weirded out by how genuine that smile was.

“See you, Karkat.”

“…See you around, Dave”

And then he banished him, and went to sleep a few short minutes later (9 minutes)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just two bros chilling in a bedroom talking about, not talking about feelings. nothing gay about that.


	32. Chapter 32

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry this is so late. This chapter is also pretty short and not much happens, but I do plan on getting back on schedule now. Thank you for your patience!

Dave was asleep. Yes, absolutely definitely asleep. It was pretty early in the morning (7:24 am) and he was lying in bed, totally asleep. He hadn’t just been abruptly awoken by his phone ringing, because no sensible person would call him before 9 am. 

Or at least, that’s what he tried to convince himself before the phone rang again. He groaned, dragging the noise out as long as he could to properly express his disgust for his non-existent audience, then picked up the phone. He squinted at the screen until the blurry image resolved itself into a picture of John wearing a terrible disguise. He accepted the call. 

“The fuck do you want, John?”

“Good morning!”

“How do you sound so awake? The sun isn’t even awake yet.”

John laughed loud enough for Dave to pull the phone away from his ear. 

“Some of us actually go to sleep before 3. Some of us also have 8 am lectures we need to get ready for.”

Dave frowned and sat up.

“8 am? How are-” he cut himself off with a yawn and involuntary stretch combo, “how are you gonna get here and demon summon and then go to class in half an hour?”

“I’m not. Jane please get down from there, it’s a piano not a step ladder.”

Dave rubbed at his eyes, and heard chatter from John’s end, probably Jane’s voice, then John’s voice again, much louder and actually discernible.

“If you wanted something down from the shelf, you could have just asked me or Jade…I appreciate that, but it’s only Dave, it’s not like it’s an important phone call.”

Dave snorted.

“Thanks man, love you too.”

“Oh shut up, you know what I meant, not you Jane. And I think Jade is in the garden, why don’t you go look for her?”

Dave could just about hear what he presumed was Jane’s footsteps, getting progressively harder to hear as she left the room.

“Sorry about that, as I was saying, I’m sure you and Rose can handle it for this morning? You did Karkat last night, right?”

“Mhm, yeah totally did Karkat, did him all night long.”

“Dave! Not what I meant!”

He laughed, and finally slid out of bed, knowing that there was no way he’d fall back to sleep after this. 

“Sorry man, but you really should have phrased that better. You could have said summoned, or talked to like a normal person but you didn’t so you brought that upon yourself.”

John made a disgusted noise, and Dave could picture his scrunched-up face very easily. It was a face he pulled often.

“But anyway, to answer your question, yeah I totally spoke to Karkat last night, and I’m pretty sure Rose will be fine with the two of us dealing with Aradia on our own.”

“Awesome! Well I’ve gotta go, I’ll text you later!”

“See ya.”

John hung up and Dave dropped his phone back onto the bed. Well, may as well have breakfast.

Exactly 20 minutes later, Dave was still alone in the kitchen. He’d made his way through one bowl of cereal and three emails, and was currently halfway through a second bowl. He felt a lot more like a functional member of the human race. Was he up to summoning demons or sitting through college lectures? Maybe not yet, but perhaps after finishing this bowl of cereal it’d be on the cards. 

Just as he thought this, Rose walked in. Although, maybe walked wasn’t the right verb. Shuffled would be more accurate. She looked less like a living person, more like a zombie, with the stilted pace and the huge bags under her eyes.

“Good m-”

“Don’t.”

Dave shut his mouth and watched in silence as Rose went to the coffee machine, which was still hot from when Dave had made himself some, and poured herself a mug. His expression slowly morphed into one of horror as she reached for one of the cupboards. He really hoped she wasn’t about to do what he thought she was about to do. She withdrew a can of energy drink from the cupboard, popped the tab and filled the mug the rest of the way. The horror changed to revulsion and kind of awe as she picked up the heart-attack inducing concoction and fucking chugged it. 

“Jesus shit, Rose.”

She wiped her mouth on her sleeve, which made Dave realise that she was already fully dressed. And, were those the clothes she was wearing yesterday? Yes, they fucking were.

“Good morning to you too.”

“Did you sleep, like, at all?”

Rose shook her head as she dropped the mug into the sink and grabbed herself a bowl.

“Nope. I was busy.”

“Doing what? Also, here, I’m done with these.”

“Thanks.” She took the cereal he’d shoved in her direction and poured it into her bowl. He was suddenly very glad she’d already chugged her drink so he wouldn’t have to worry  
about her pouring it on her cereal. But now the image was in his head, gross. He blocked it out as best he could because seriously, no. “I was working out the correct chain of demons.”

“Oh? Sweet.”

“Yeah.”

She grabbed milk from the fridge and poured it into her bowl. He was almost concerned she’d forget to stop pouring but she caught herself just before it reached the brim. She then put it back and grabbed herself a spoon.

“So, are you gonna tell me what the chain is ooooor?”

He dragged out the last word, raising an eyebrow. Rose nodded, shoved cereal in her mouth, swallowed then replied.

“Karkat, Aradia, Tavros, Sollux, Nepeta, Kanaya, Terezi, Vriska, Equius, Gamzee, Eridan, Feferi.”

Dave nodded along. He didn’t know half of the names, but it sounded alright to him. 

“Awesome, so we should be over with this soon enough.”

“Hopefully.” Rose said. Well, Dave assumed that’s what she said, as her mouth still had a spoon in it when she spoke. 

Dave was pretty sure that the feeling in his gut was relief. He didn’t know what else it would be. 

“So.”

“So.”

Dave shook his head and ate more cereal. Rose wasn’t awake enough to have a proper conversation. This demon summoning was going to be a riot. 

“Rose, are you sure that going to class today is a good idea? You look-”

He cut himself short as he felt her glare chill his very soul. 

“Ok, nevermind. Let’s just get this done quickly.”

Rose nodded in agreement and picked up her bowl to drink the milk from the bottom, Dave followed suit.


	33. Chapter 33

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It has been way way waaayyy too long, so I thank you all for your patience! I hope you enjoy this chapter and that it was worth the wait. I hope to get another one out soon.

Rose was asleep. And not like fake asleep like Dave had been pretending a few minutes ago, but actually full on passed out on the kitchen table. Dave had left the room to check on the kids, see if they were getting up yet (they weren’t) and when he came back, he found her like this. Head on her arms, arms on the table, curled up in her chair, sleeping like a log. Apparently, her coffee/energy drink nightmare had all been for nothing.

“Rose. Rooooose. Rosie wake uuuuup.”

He rested an arm on her shoulder and she jolted upright.

“I’m awake!”

“Yes, clearly. Look, we still have a few hours before we need to call Aradia, why not just go back to bed?”

Rose ran a hand through her hair.

“I am perfectly capable of doing this.”

“Rose, seriously, go to sleep. You’re worrying me. You keep doing this lately, staying up late and putting pressure on yourself. You need rest. I know you want to help but look. You just fell asleep in your fucking chair. Go to bed.”

She glared at him, but he glared right back. He was not going to let her do this. Not sleeping and running herself ragged trying to solve problems that she didn’t need to work on by herself was going to seriously hurt her if she kept it up and as her brother he wasn’t going to let it continue. 

“You just summoned the last demon by yourself, it doesn’t feel safe to let you do it again.”

“I’ll be fine, Aradia was chill.”

Rose raised an eyebrow.

“She said she couldn’t wait to see how we died and you wanted to banish her after she said three words.”

She had a point there.

“Look. How about this. You go to bed, I summon Aradia, we both keep our phones right next to each other and if I need help I call you.”

“It would be much simpler to just let me do it with you.”

“Rose.”

He crossed his arms.

She crossed hers.

“Roooose.”

She sighed and finally raised her arms in defeat.

“Fine! Fine. I’ll go, but you’d better call me.”

She got up and he moved to let her pass.

“I will, I promise, now go the fuck to sleep.”

He kissed her forehead as she left the room, put her bowl in the sink and headed up to the observatory.

…  
For the first time, Dave actually tried to do this properly. Sure, he’d summoned Karkat without protection twice before, but he gets the feeling that the only reason he didn’t face severe consequences was a cross between luck and Karkat not having a mean bone in his body. If demon bodies had bones? What would they have instead of bones? Cartilage? That’s the stuff that human noses and sharks are made up of, right? Dave’s pretty sure he’s right. So what if trolls are just cartilage? Karkat doesn’t have a mean bit of cartilage in his body just doesn’t have the same ring to it. 

Anyway, Dave drew a pretty circle and even brought up some candles from Rose’s room. He totally hadn’t gone in there on the way up to check she was sleeping. Definitely just to grab candles. That he happened to notice she was in bed and trying to sleep was irrelevant. She’d told him to grab the red one, so he did and also a couple of white ones as well, because he was pretty sure that Rose had said something about all the candles having meaning and needing more than just one, but he didn’t remember which ones meant what so he just grabbed the white ones and hoped for the best. 

Dave placed the white candles at what would be the four corners of the circle if it was a square (so just four points kinda opposite each other because it was in fact a circle, not a square) and the red on in front of him. He lit them and then finally pulled the sheep keyring from his pocket and placed it in the middle. 

“I’m not going to be as formal as Rose when doing this, but Karkat said I needed more protection or else I’ll get brainfucked by a demon bitch so I guess I’ll do this. Also, he didn’t use those words but that was his meaning, that it was a dumb as fuck thing to do and I’m not dumb as fuck so I’m not gonna do that. So uuuh. If the god, goddess and guardians could grant me some protection so I don’t get brainfucked by a demon chick who said she was looking forward to seeing me die, I’d really appreciate it. Also, if you could place wards to stop her shit from wrecking the house and reality or whatever I’d owe you one. Well I don’t know how I’d repay you so maybe just forget I said that bit.”

Dave breathed deeply. He was rambling and he knew it. He closed his eyes and carried on.

“Anyway, I summon Aradia, please don’t hurt me.”

He kept his eyes closed until he heard soft laughter. When he opened his eyes, he saw the demon sat with both of her legs tucked under her on the floor in front of him. Ok Dave, don’t freak out, just a psychopomp sat in front of you, laughing.

“Hey.”

Cool, good start.

“Hello Dave, have you found out what you wanted yet?”

What? Oh yeah. When they’d summoned her the first time they hadn’t worked out what they wanted to do with the kids, and asked her to get rid of them.

“Not quite yet but I think we’re getting there. Karkat apparently did some research, talking to other blood demons and is sure that they won’t revert to their old ways or whatever, nor will they get their memories back or in anyway transform into their old selves. Unless he’s wrong? Would you know anything about this?”

Aradia shrugged.

“I trust Karkat to have done thorough research. I personally don’t see why they wouldn’t stay the way they are now. The offer still stands for me to kill them should you need it.”

Dave shuddered.

“No, I think I’m good there and for future reference much less death talk would be great. Like a sum total of zero death talk would be fucking spectacular, or more specifically talking about killing people I know.”

“Got it.”

“Cool.”

Cool. This was going fine. Going great. 

“So, was there anything else you wanted?”

Did he want to spend more time with the time demon who had an obsession with death that was so unhealthy that a doctor would take one look at it and say ‘sorry, but there is nothing we can do about it, you’re just gonna die, but I think you’ll be ok with that’? No, no he did not. But he did have something else he wanted to bring up.

“Yeah. Would there by any chance happen to be a possibility that I have demonic powers now?”

Aradia tilted her head to the side. Dave noticed that the pupils of her eyes were unlike those of the other demons they’d met and were rectangular. Which is way too fucking creepy, so he looked away instantly. 

“Why do you ask?”

“Well John said that Vriska told him we do, and so I asked Karkat and he started going on about classes and aspects and shit so apparently I’m maybe a maid of blood or a knight of time whatever that means? To be honest I wasn’t paying much attention, the dude talks a lot but doesn’t make a lot of sense.”

She laughed again.

“Ok. Well I can definitely help you see if you have time powers. When I first started growing into my powers I noticed my connection to the flow of time growing stronger, I could feel it around me long before I began to manipulate it.”

“Karkat said the same kind of shit too but I’ve got no fucking clue what you mean by my connection to the flow of time. I don’t have a connection to it, it just happens.”

“So you might think. Tell me, how long have we been talking?

“Three minutes and twenty-five seconds.”

What the fuck.

What the fuck?

Dave pressed a hand to his face, pushing his shades into his skull uncomfortably.

“What the fuck?”

“You’re more connected to the flow of time now. You should be able to tell exactly how long it takes to do things, when things happened and when things will happen. You’re not a seer though, so don’t go trying to predict the future.”

He removed his hand.

“What does this mean?”

“I don’t know.”

Oh good.

“Can I rewind time now? Have I got a magic undo button? Can I go back in time? Forwards? Is the butterfly effect a thing? Is this like a movie where I can go back in time but I might end up fucking my mom and becoming my own dad? Also, that’s super fucked up.”

Dave wasn’t freaking out. He wasn’t. Everything was totally under control.

“I’m honestly not sure. I don’t know what powers a Knight of Time is supposed to have. I could go ask someone for you, if you’d like.”

“That would be great, thanks. Wait, what about Rose?”

What if Rose got even stupider powers? What would that mean, what does any of this mean?

“Who do you think she might get powers from?”

“Vriska and Terezi I think?”

Aradia raised her eyebrows.

“Really?”

“Yeah?”

A look that Dave didn’t understand crossed her face.

“Well that’s interesting. Both scourge sisters. But! She’ll either be a seer of light or a thief of mind. I can go talk to some people about all three titles and get back to you!”

“Sure, sounds good. Wait, how will you contact me though, or will you just wait for us to contact you or what?”

Aradia smiled.

“Don’t worry about it. Just banish me so I can get on it for you!”

Dave had a feeling he was going to worry about it for a while, but he banished her anyway.


End file.
